


Anniversary

by Bullfinch



Series: After Kirkwall [9]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-05-30 12:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6424900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Inquisition. Fenris is taken from his and Hawke's home. Hawke will stop at nothing to get him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Fenris is hanging herbs to dry when Hawke returns from the city. His hair is tied up in a neat bun, his hands calm and careful as they go about their work, wrapping the thin twine around the little bundles of stems that hang in a fringe over the porch.

Hawke comes up behind him and wraps an arm around his waist, kissing his neck.

“Mm.” Fenris finds Hawke’s hand and squeezes it. “Good evening.”

“Evening,” Hawke murmurs. “It’s the nineteenth of Bloomingtide.”

“Oh. Already? I hadn’t realized.”

“I hadn’t either. Just heard someone mention it today at the market.”

Fenris turns and strokes Hawke’s face. “Then we should do something tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. The thirteenth anniversary of their meeting. Hawke sighs and buries his face in Fenris’s shoulder. “Getting swindled by you and Anso was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Fenris laughs, his fingers running through Hawke’s hair. “I’m glad you were desperate enough to take the job.”

“Let’s sleep in,” Hawke says. “I’ll make you breakfast in bed and then we can pack a picnic and go to the Wounded Coast and swim in the bay.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Hawke takes a deep breath and straightens. “I love you.”

Fenris holds his face in both hands and kisses him. “And I love you.”

——

The first thing Hawke is aware of when he rouses is Fenris’s warm, thin body pressed against his own, shifting a little with wakefulness.

The second thing is the scrape of a boot on the floorboards behind him.

He rolls over, the blanket slipping from his bare shoulders, and lands crouched on the floor. There’s a dagger under his pillow, and he swipes for it, his grip still weak with sleep. The room is dark, but he counts the figures, one, two, three—

A wave of white magic gusts through the air, setting Hawke’s head spinning so fast he can hardly see. He grunts, the dagger clattering to the floor; but he snatches it up and staggers forward. Mages. Harry and interrupt. His vision is a splintered blur but he spots an arm coming down and blocks. A hard thump that jars him all the way to the wrist and elbow. Blunt weapon, mace or club. The mage will be in the back. Another wave of magic, a crushing pain in his skull. Hawke groans and buckles but plunges forward. Harry and interrupt. Another figure in front of him, looming. He heaves himself straight into it and pumps his legs. The figure stumbles back with him. Hawke can’t see anything so he listens as he charges forward, hears the scrape to his right—spins and lashes out with the knife.

The last figure slips to one side. The knife splits the empty air. But Hawke’s vision clears all at once. Harry and interrupt. Messy, but it worked.

The club. Shit. Hawke flips around just in time to take it on the shoulder rather than the back of his head. Doesn’t have time for this. Needs to kill the mage. A white-blue glow to his left. Fenris. To his right the mage slips backward out of the house, and Fenris follows, ghosting through the wall. Which leaves Hawke facing the two left inside, blocking him from the door. The silhouettes tower over him, shadowed, hulking bodies with—

—horns atop their heads.

A yell of pain from outside the house. Hawke’s stomach twists. That’s Fenris’s voice. Two clubs come down above him. Hawke scrambles aside and takes one on the hip, strikes out with his knife. It sinks into the meat at the back of the karasaad’s knee, and as Hawke yanks it out the leg buckles. Good. He slips behind the two Qunari and darts for the door, his bare feet pushing off the wooden floor. The second one makes a grab at him and snags his trouser leg. Hawke stabs the offending hand; it springs open, though he hasn’t time to pull the dagger back out. But he escapes, plunging out onto the porch.

The air glitters white. Fenris is crumpled on the ground, his brands blazing, flecks of light settling over him like a blanket of snow. Two more Qunari move toward him, shackles in hand. The mage—mages, two saarebas, one in the yard and the other over by the riverbank, stand with arms outstretched. Their bronze chains gleam, reflecting the glow of the spirit magic. Hawke launches himself off the porch—

A hard grip seizes his wrist and yanks him back. Fuck. He whirls to face the new enemy—motion, too late to block, and the Qunari’s fist jabs him straight in the nose. Blood bursts out over his lips, and he coughs as it trickles down his throat. Dazed, he shakes his head and staggers. Then an arm wraps around his neck from behind, fitting snug under his chin. One of the two who tried to trap him inside. Fuck. Unarmed, head pounding, still half-asleep. How is he supposed to win this? He folds himself up, tries to push off the one in front of him; but the Qunari locks up one of Hawke’s legs instead, capturing it against his side. Hawke swallows blood, gasps for breath and doesn’t find it. He grabs the arm around his neck and pulls—a fraction of give, but not enough, it’s not enough—

“Hey. _Hey._ You’re done, Hawke. Give it up.”

Hawke freezes.

He knows that voice. Hard to see in the dark, but the ambient light, the faint glow of the spirit magic that floats over the yard reflects off the metallic sheen of an eye patch, outlines the sharp point of a horn pointing skyward—

Hawke struggles again, more violently this time, though his chest aches from the lack of air. _“Bastard,”_ he wheezes.

The Iron Bull holds his leg tight. “Yeah, nice to see you again too.”

It doesn’t make sense. Hawke tries to understand with a mind already fading. Bull tried to re-educate him once, true, him and Fenris, but that was long ago, before he turned Tal-Vashoth and helped Hawke on Seheron. Why would he do this now?

Because he’s Qunari, that’s why. Because he’s a hissrad and he lies as a matter of course, wherever he needs to, for however long it takes. Hawke wonders if the Qunari offered him a chance to redeem himself or if he simply never left at all.

Hawke reaches down and gropes at the belt of the karasaad behind him. There. A hilt. He grasps it and draws. From the way it comes out it’s a blade, a short one. He flips it in his hand and jams it back just past his ear.

A high yell, and the arm around his neck slackens. Hawke yanks it away and heaves in a great breath, then levers himself up on the leg Bull’s still holding, making a grab for one of his horns.

Bull drops the leg, throwing an elbow out. Hawke takes it in the ribs; but he follows the momentum, rolling down the stairs and off the porch.

 _“Put him out!”_ Bull roars.

Hawke rises, spitting blood on the grass. A Qunari hurtling down the steps. Hawke is awake now, and angry. The faster he finishes this, the faster he can get Fenris away from those saarebas. He lost the knife in the other karasaad’s face, but he can smash a few joints with his bare hands—

A searing pain in the back of his shoulder.

He nearly misses the punch, only just gets inside of it, lands a solid hit to the Qunari’s gut. A pained grunt; Hawke finishes with an uppercut that—he winces—definitely broke a bone or two in his hand. The Qunari arches back, collapsing.

Bull comes down the stairs.

Hawke wavers. His vision tilts and blurs. There’s something sharp stuck in the back of his shoulder. Something that burns. Bull throws a punch. Hawke blocks; it holds, barely, and makes him stumble to one side. Another punch. This time the block is too weak. Bull breaks it, his fist smashing into Hawke’s cheek and putting him on the ground.

Hawke props himself up on an elbow and starts to rise. A boot lands between his shoulders, forcing him back down again. The grass is wet and cool against his cheek.

“Hey. Wanna join the Qun?”

“Fuck off,” Hawke hisses. Darkness eats at the edges of his vision.

Bull sighs. “Had to try. I’d really rather not kill you.”

“Let Fenris go. If there’s an ounce of decency left in you that haven’t fed to the bloody Qun, then let him go.”

“Sorry, but you don’t say no to the Viddasala. Look, you sure you don’t wanna join? We had something good on Seheron. I don’t wanna watch you die after all that.”

“Then look away.”

An annoyed growl. “Knew you were gonna say that.”

Hawke has something else to say. The words are a garble from his clumsy lips. He’s going to try again; but he slips out of consciousness first.

——

Cold.

Cold. Can’t hear. Can’t breathe. Hawke struggles, twists and kicks until his head breaks the surface.

The river. It’s rushing high and fast with recent rain. Hawke finds his hands are bound in front of him, and he can’t use them to swim. Fuck. He cycles his legs, tipping his head back to keep his mouth above the water. The Qunari must have tied his hands and then chucked him in. This is bad. The river gets more torrential past their home and then widens out until it hits the Waking Sea, southeast of Kirkwall. Water swills into his mouth, and he coughs and spits, then rotates, scanning. The left bank is ten yards away, and the right bank twenty. He turns right and starts kicking backwards.

Progress is slow, compared to the current that bears him forward. He’s so tired. Hard to keep his eyes open, even when he’s about to drown. Hard to kick. Weak. His legs are weak. Whatever drug put him down before is still in his system. Fuck. Doesn’t help the river’s so damn cold. Not as bad as it was during the snowmelt a couple of months ago, but the approaching summer hasn’t had a chance to warm it yet.

Then something tugs at his trouser leg. No.

The rapids seethe up around him, the current flipping him over and dragging him down. The water closes over his head. He kicks frantically, blind and drowning, but without the use of his hands he’s helpless to move his body against the tumultuous current. The water is a thousand grasping hands, spinning him around, holding him down here.

Then it slackens, and he twists, kicking, breaking the surface once more.

He heaves in shivering breaths and assesses his situation. Looks like the rapids dumped him back in the middle of the river. Just as well; it’s deeper here, and calmer, although it still bears him toward the Waking Sea with haste.

Hawke squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. Can’t remember the last time he felt this exhausted. He wonders how long the drug will take to fade. Too long.

No. He has to stay alive. He has to get Fenris back.

Hawke kicks steadily. His legs are burning already. His teeth chatter. Can’t risk the rapids again. They’ll drown him, with his hands bound up like this.

So he’ll just have to stay here, in the middle of the river, where it’s deeper and not as fast. The sky’s still dark, but a hint of light wells in the east. If he’s lucky someone will be out early to do some fishing.

His skin is starting to feel numb. His eyelids drift closed, but he forces them open again. Damn it all. It’s like sleep deprivation, except he’s also drowning. And freezing.

He grins fiercely at the star-speckled sky. None of it matters. He’s going to live. And he’s going to kill the Iron Bull.

——

_“…oi!”_

Water spills into Hawke’s mouth. He’s given up on spitting it out, and simply lets it slosh through his lips with the eddies of the river. His legs are frozen with exhaustion, and he’s using the muscles in his stomach and hips to kick, but they burn with the effort.

“Oi! Stranger!”

The sound is garbled. Water fills his ears. He can’t feel his arms anymore. His eyelids keep on closing. Doggedly he opens them again.

A shadow in the meek dawn light. A rippling beside him. Something grasps him by the armpits and lifts him; then he slid back into the water.

 _“Shit,_ he’s big as a fucking heifer—Marnie, lean over the other side or we’ll tip.”

“Yes, Da.”

“Come on, you great bloody bastard.” Something grabs him again. “Give me something here. Kick your damned legs.”

Kick.

His frozen muscles tighten and move. Hawke kicks with everything he has left in him. It isn’t much.

“Almost there— _shit,_ Marnie, lean harder or we’ll tip!“

“I’m trying, Da! I’m not very big!”

“Let’s go, stranger, I’m not bloody dropping you in again—“

Hawke thrashes his legs against the dark water. His chest breaks free of the surface, then his stomach—then his hips, and strong hands drag him out of the river and into the boat.

Hawke heaves in great gulps of air and closes his eyes. No. Opens them up again. Something…wriggles under him.

“Sorry ‘bout the fish,” his rescuer says gruffly. “Oh, shit. You’re white as a sheet.” Rustling. Something dry and warm on his skin. “We need to get you warm right…er. Did someone…bind your hands?”

“Aveline,” Hawke rasps.

“What was that?”

“Guard-Captain. Aveline.”

“You—you want us to bring you to her?”

Hawke nods. Something silvery flicks him in the face.

“Hey, you look sort of familiar. What’s your name, stranger?”

He smiles a little. “Rowan Hawke.”

A gasp. From the girl. The man makes a sort of choked grunt. “Oh. Well, Champion, I’ll see you survive this if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Thank you.”

Rippling and splashing. The deep pulls of oars through water.

Hawke, at last, closes his eyes.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hawke wakes with his mouth full of cotton and his skin sticky with sweat.

He crack his eyes and tries to kick off the blankets— _ow_ —winces at the deep, burning ache in his legs. Where…this isn’t his bed. Where’s Fenris?

“Uncle Hawke!”

Oh. Saravh. He looks over.

It’s her room, on the second floor of Aveline’s house. Long orange rays of sun lance through the window to Hawke’s right. Saravh sits by the edge of the bed, clasping his hand in both of her own. Her face is drawn in worry. “How are you feeling?”

Hawke tries to answer and coughs. Saravh slips an arm under his back. “Here, let me help you sit up.”

She’s strong for an eleven-year-old. All that training she begs from him and Fenris, and from her parents. Hawke sits up with effort; she hands him a cup of water, and he drinks.

When the cup is empty he sets it back down on the table. “Where’s your mother?” he murmurs.

“Er—downstairs, I think.”

“Would you mind fetching her?”

Left alone, Hawke massages his thighs. Stiff as boards. He’s still got all his fingers and toes, which is good, although he’s missing his trousers under the sheet. Well, it’s not the first time Aveline’s seen him naked.

“Hawke!” Aveline comes in and shuts the door behind her. “What in blazes happened to you?! Even the healer wasn’t sure you were going to make it—“

“Aveline, we were attacked by Qunari,” Hawke says quietly. “They took Fenris. I need to talk to Varric, now.”

Aveline pauses. “Oh, shit,” she mutters. “Right. I’ll send for him.”

“And would you get me some clothes? That fit?”

She heads for the door. “On it.”

“And Aveline?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

She sighs. “Can’t say it’s boring, being your friend.”

——

“No. Hawke, that’s impossible.”

He rubs his forehead. “Right. Must’ve been some other one-eyed Qunari who belted me in the face, bound my hands, and threw me in a river.”

“But he’s—I mean, he’s _better._ Why would he do this?”

“Because he’s bloody Qunari, they’re brainwashed from birth. Do you know where he is?”

Varric hesitates.

Hawke narrows his eyes. “Varric, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to find it out myself and you’ll be the one cleaning up the corpses.”

As soon as he says it the guilt twinges in his gut—but Varric takes it with no more than a grimace. “Look, just do me a favor and talk to him first, all right? Something’s not right here.”

“No, it isn’t. Fenris has been kidnapped.”

“Hawke. Trust me. Something’s not right, I know Bull.”

“Thought I did too. Can’t be surprised he fooled us, though, his name literally means ‘liar’—”

“Not to mention the fact that he left Kirkwall this afternoon with Dorian. Alone. No Qunari. And we’ve had no reports of Qunari near the city either.”

“You realize Fenris and I live outside the city, right?”

“Listen, after Starkhaven tried to make a move on us, I poured _thousands_ of sovereigns into hiring and training more scouts. If a nug squeaks funny anywhere within two hundred miles of here, I know about it.”

Hawke shrugs. “Expect a few of your scouts’ corpses to turn up in the next few days, then.”

Varric takes a long, measured breath. “He came up to check on the Chargers, the new ones, I’ve got ‘em on a contract fending off bandits from our supply caravans. Only stayed for a couple days. He and Dorian hopped a boat to Highever a few hours ago.”

Hawke nods, thinking. The fact that the rest of their attackers managed to vanish into thin air is discouraging, and he doesn’t have the resources to search for them. But the Iron Bull will know where they’ve gone. “Start a search for those Qunari.” He swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “And get me on a ship to Highever. Tonight.”

——

The journey is two days. Hawke spends most of it sleeping.

He’s not sure if it’s the drug, or the swimming, or spending an hour submerged in a river in late spring, but he’s completely exhausted. The only available transport was a cargo ship, so Hawke sleeps in whichever hammock isn’t occupied by one of the crew. When he rouses he practices some of the forms Fenris taught him, the ones meant to counter Qunari martial arts. They’re supposed to minimize the size disadvantage, although that disadvantage is going to kick him in the ass no matter what.

Which is why he brought a couple of sheaves of throwing knives and dozen different poisons. That’s how he killed the Arishok, after all. Of course, he can’t kill the Iron Bull. He needs information. But torture’s not going to work, not on a Qunari.

Hawke has a plan for that, too.

By the time he disembarks, he’s feeling much better.

Not hard to track a Tevinter and a one-eyed Qunari in Ferelden. Hawke arrives in the afternoon and finds they headed west out of Highever a few hours ago. He buys a good horse and pursues, riding through the night. At each town he makes some more inquiries; at last he finds one where they entered and didn’t leave. Good. Caught up. He makes camp in the woods nearby and indulges in the luxury of a couple of hours’ sleep before the dawn.

He needs to separate them. It’ll be hard enough taking Bull on alone, but with a mage in the mix, he’s fucked. So he needs to separate them, but he can’t alert whichever is left behind that something’s wrong, or they might rush in to help. In the morning he watches the outgoing road from the treeline until a human and a Qunari ride out, the human on a midweight bay, the Qunari on a draft horse that must weigh over a hundred stone.

Hawke waits for them to pass out of sight, then retrieves his own mount and rides out. He turns ideas over in his head as he goes.

It’s cooler here than it was in the Marches, and Hawke welcomes the breeze that cuts through the woods, his cloak flapping over his horse’s flank. He remains far behind his quarry and keeps an eye on them with the telescope he paid the ship captain far too much money for. Now that he’s rested, he itches to act, and runs his fingers absently over the four daggers at his hips, the sheaves of throwing knives at his back, the poisons at his waist. He’ll only get one chance. Would be nice to have more resources, or more time; but he has neither.

In the evening the trees on his left cede to wide fields of wheat, glowing a rich yellow in the light of the setting sun. A town appears not much further ahead, bunched up against the treeline. Good. Hawke guides his horse right, into the forest, so they can rest for a bit. Best not to head right in and risk being seen.

When the sun has finally dropped below the horizon he emerges again. Close now. He rubs his thumb over one of the pommels at his belt. Soon.

Hawke leaves his horse at the stable and goes to look for the tavern. This seems the kind of backwater Fereldan town where two men in a relationship would provoke some poisonous glances, let alone a Tevinter and a Qunari, so he doesn’t think they’ll have lingered to drink downstairs, only rented a room. The tavern is lively—not altogether surprising, as there’s not much else to do in places like these. Hawke squeezes himself into a vacant seat at the bar and orders a drink.

He waits a bit, until a few of the rowdier patrons have gone home, to drain his pint and motion to the barkeep. “Another.”

The barkeep is a thin, kindly-looking man, and he comes over with a mug full and foaming. “Haven’t seen you here before. Are you a traveler? What brings you out this way?”

“Indeed.” Hawke accepts the mug. “Had to leave Highever due to some, er, misunderstandings with the law.” He flashes a grin and adds an edge to it. Difficult to balance this, but he thinks he can pull it off.

The barkeep laughs, plainly not quite comfortable with the subject. “Ah, I see.”

“Listen, was that a Tevinter I saw come in here earlier? With the oxman?”

The man blinks. “Er—why d’you ask?”

As good as telling him yes. Hawke narrows his eyes. “Because Northmen are the scum of the bloody earth. You know slavers took two of my mates? Never saw them again. Hey, did the Tevinter get a room here? I’ve half a mind to go up and show him exactly what I think of him and his countrymen.” He lets a hand drift down to his belt for good measure.

The barkeep lets out another uncomfortable laugh. “Think you might have trouble with that. Like you said, he’s got an oxman with him.”

“Oh, that’s no problem. Killed a few oxmen in my day.”

The barkeep freezes.

Hawke lets the silence stretch a moment, then puts on an awkward smile. “Just joking, just joking. Having a laugh. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh! Of course, I understand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think someone wants another pint…”

The man sidles away. Hawke watches him refill another pair of mugs. Then he heads for the stairs.

Perfect. As soon as he’s out of sight Hawke pushes his stool back and leaves the tavern.

There are still some people out, enjoying the spring evening, and Hawke strides past them with his head held high. He needs to be seen. Once warned of the murderous traveler downstairs, Bull will come, Hawke’s sure of it, because this environment is unfamiliar and possibly hostile and threats are best nipped in the bud. And he’ll come alone to keep Dorian away from the enormous, avowedly violent stranger who hates Tevinters so very much. It’s what Hawke would do if he and Fenris stopped in a Fereldan backwater and someone started talking about how much they wanted to kill elves.

Through the streets and north. Hawke glances back and forth, making transient eye contact with a few people. When asked, they must be able to point out where he went.

The outskirts of town. A trio of old men smoke pipes beneath an apple tree in full bloom. Hawke glances over his shoulder and starts jogging, slipping into the forest. He wonders if Bull will figure out it’s a trap. He must’ve known that throwing someone in a river, even with their hands bound, certainly isn’t the surest way to kill them. Hawke ascribes it to sentiment. _I don’t wanna watch you die after all that._

Even if he does spot the trap, it doesn’t matter. The result will be the same. Hawke clambers up a tree, draws two throwing knives, and then takes two vials of poison from his belt. As he uncorks them with his teeth, he spots Bull running down the street, pausing to speak to the trio of old men. They point towards the trees.

Bull gazes through the gloom of dusk at the dark forest.

Hawke waits. He’s going to come. Better to spring a trap you know is there than to blunder into it when you least expect it. The knives are laced and light in his fingers.

Bull walks across the grass and into the trees. Hawke grins down from his invisible perch, waits until Bull is a couple of yards inside the treeline, and throws.

The blades thunk into his upper back. Quick as an arrow—still so bloody fast, even with that huge body of his—he ducks behind a stout trunk. Hawke drops down and darts forward. If Bull figures out those are poisoned, he’ll want to run. The light is poor, but Hawke’s in dark clothing with a dark cloak to obscure his silhouette. In the dusk he’ll be little more than a deadly shadow.

His daggers are in hand. He circles around the tree and attacks.

Bull’s face opens up in surprise, and the first thrust almost pierces his unarmored shoulder; instead he manages to thwack it to one side, and it slices into him only shallowly. The other he ducks into, and the blade-tip bounces off his horn. _“Hawke?”_

Hawke goes low, aiming for the knee; Bull deflects it off his shin and swivels into a kick. Hawke folds up an arm, absorbs the impact, rolls with it, finds Bull has slipped sideways and away from the tree. He reaches over his shoulder and pulls out the throwing knives, chucking them aside.

Not very smart. He could’ve used those. Hawke charges. Just needs to occupy him, keep him here until those poisons work. Crippling him would be nice, too.

Bull backpedals. He’s more active now in his defense, his long arms slipping forward to knock Hawke’s blows off-course before they land. “What are you— _fuck_ —what are you doing?!”

Hawke doesn’t dignify that with a response. He lashes out with a heel, and it lands hard on the inside of Bull’s knee. That would knock a smaller opponent’s leg out from under them, but Bull’s boot merely stutters on the leaves.

“Would you stop trying to—“ a grunt, “ _—_ stab me?! I thought we were okay!” He continues to defend, missing counters Hawke would have taken in his place. Trying to keep up this facade of confusion? Perhaps, if he thinks it’ll give Hawke any pause. Anything to offset the fact that he’s unarmed, and the advance of the poisons bounding in his blood.

Hawke presses. Low strikes that might be lost in the dusk against his dark clothing; Bull takes one, the dagger sliding all the way through his forearm. Hawke leaves it and draws another. A high stab for the shoulder.

Bull’s block is clumsy, and only his stumble saves him. Hawke almost laughs. The poisons doing their job. He’s fought plenty of Qunari in Tevinter the past few years, and the battles afforded him some opportunities to experiment with how Qunari physiology interacts with the herbs he can find on Kirkwall’s black market. Not as one would expect, but Hawke _knows_ these preparations will work. Bull’s movements should be growing awkward, his strength deserting him. He’ll be unconscious soon enough.

Hawke tries the kick again, striking out at Bull’s knee. The leg buckles, and Bull staggers backward, falling on his ass. “H…” He shakes his head. “Hawke. Wait.”

Hawke takes a step forward and spins. His heel smashes into Bull’s cheek, sending him to the leaves.

That felt _very_ good. Bull coughs, spitting blood on the ground. He props himself up on an elbow. “Why are—why are you—“

Hawke cuts him off. “Where’s Fenris?”

“What? I don’t know! He’s yourpartner!”

Hawke sheathes one of his daggers, leans down, and grabs a horn, hauling Bull’s head up again. “I’m going to get it out of you one way or another, so I suggest you tell me now. Things’ll go a lot—“

Something slams into him and sends him tumbling sideways, into the trees.

 _Ow._ His other dagger is lost from his hands. He rolls to a crouch, peering through the gloom—

The flash of a dozen unnecessary buckles just outside the treeline. _Fuck._ A bewildered, “Hawke?”

The Tevinter’s arrived early. Hawke kneels and goes behind his back with both hands—

“Throwing knives, Dorian!”

Bull. Only got one eye, but it’s still bloody sharp. Hawke throws anyway, but the blades stick in a sheet of ice that erupts from the carpet of leaves. Hawke charges, tacking left to go around the wall, but as soon as he makes the edge another enormous blast of force rams into him. Much stronger this time, enough to lift him bodily into the air. He flies backward, winded. His back thumps hard against a tree, and he crumples at the base of it.

“Bull,” Dorian gasps. “Are you all—“

“He’s not out, Dorian, _he’s not out!”_

Fucker. Hawke’s head is spinning but he gets to his feet and lurches forward anyway, pumping his legs. It doesn’t need to be pretty, just needs to work. In his tilting vision he spots Dorian retreating from Bull with haste, hands weaving. Hawke draws a dagger and rushes toward him—

Something snags his foot, and he falls, catches himself on an outstretched hand. Yanks his ankle out of Bull’s grip—

Too late. The white swell of spirit magic washes over him. Immediately his eyelids grow heavy, and he falls to an elbow. No. He has to try. Drags himself forward, the knife slipping from his fingers.

The magic smothers him. Hawke collapses, falling into darkness.

——

When he wakes again his leg is very cold.

He squints at it. It’s encased in a block of ice below the knee. Better than a ball and chain.

“Hey. He’s awake.”

Hawke grimaces and sits up.

Bull nods at him. “Keep your hands where I can see ‘em or they get iced too.”

That would not be ideal. Hawke rests them on his lap and assesses the situation. They’re still inside the trees, although there’s a little flame floating in the air, burning away the dark of night. Dorian is at Bull’s side; Bull’s wounds are closed, although his skin is still speckled with dried blood. Damn it all. It almost worked. “Where’s Fenris?” Hawke asks.

Bull growls. “I already told you, I _don’t know._ Why do you think I know that?”

“And why were you trying to kill him, exactly?” Dorian puts in.

“Wasn’t trying to kill him,” Hawke murmurs.

“Ah. Some Fereldan friendship custom I’m unaware of?”

“He was trying to capture me,” Bull says. “To extract Fenris’s location.”

“What, by—torturing you?”

“No. Torturing you. Isn’t that right, Hawke?”

Dorian pauses. “Oh.”

“Where’s Fenris?” Hawke asks again.

“Oh, for—“ Dorian throws a hand in the air. “He _doesn’t know._ We’ve been over this.”

Hawke exhales. “You may want to know that while the two of you were in Kirkwall, he and a bunch of his Qunari cronies attacked Fenris and me in the middle of the night. Fenris was taken, and—“ Hawke nods at Bull, “—he bound my hands and threw me in a river to drown. So that’s the kind of man you’ve been fucking, in case you were wondering.”

Bull mutters a curse. “Hawke. I didn’t do any of that.”

Hawke chuckles. “What, are you going to try and convince me that whatever you drugged me with made me hallucinate the whole thing? You stomping on my back, trying to get me to join the Qun so you wouldn’t have to kill me?”

Bull stares. “Hawke—I’m not saying that didn’t happen to you, but it wasn’t me who did it. Whoever took Fenris must’ve messed with your head somehow. Dorian, can you figure out what’s wrong with him?”

“I can try.” He approaches.

Hawke flinches back, eyeing him. “Stay away from me.”

Bull heaves a sigh. “Either you let him do it, or I hold you down and he does it anyway. Not gonna let you run around while you still want to hurt him. Or me.”

Hawke searches wildly for a plan and doesn’t find one. A mage _and_ a Qunari. Poor odds. Well, he’ll just come up with something else later. “Fine,” he murmurs.

Dorian kneels and rests a hand on his brow.

A faint white glow, bright and alien in the night. Hawke squints against it. Dorian stays there a moment more; then he sits back, the glow fading. “Well.” He shakes out his hand. “That looks unpleasant.”

“What?” Bull asks sharply.

“Blood magic. His memories have been modified. A shoddy spell, they just sort of—pressed it onto the real ones like wallpaper. Very thin wallpaper.”

Hawke stares. What? No, that can’t be true—

“Can you undo it?”

“Yes,” Dorian replies. “I believe so. I just need…”

He draws a vibrant blue vial from a pouch at his belt and uncorks it, tipping it back between his lips. Hawke’s hardly paying attention. His memories have been changed? He squeezes his eyes shut and goes back over them—the scrape of a boot on the floorboards behind him, the dagger in his hand, the club coming down on his arm, slamming into the karasaad and pushing him back—

Dorian’s hand rests again on his brow, and his vision drains away all at once.

——

_The scrape of a boot on the floorboards behind him._

_Hawke tries to fight them. It’s dark, and he’s unarmed. Fenris ghosts through the wall outside. His yell of pain comes a moment later._

_Hawke makes it onto the porch. Two mages stand in the yard in plainclothes. Humans. Two more humans approach Fenris, carrying shackles._

_There are more on the porch. They’re well-trained. Hawke recognizes the forms. Fenris uses these forms. There are too many. He’s unarmed. He’s just woken up. One of them wraps him up in a chokehold. Hawke stabs the man in the eye with his own dagger. It feels good. He makes it into the yard. One of them belts him in the cheek. A strong hit. Hawke finds himself on the ground. He’s rolled over onto his stomach, his arms twisted up behind his back. Someone grinds his face into the grass._

_They call to each other in Tevene. “You got those shackles on yet?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Good. Work on this one, but don’t take too long, we have to move. Quintus, contact Salona, tell him we’ve got his elf.”_

_“Right.”_

_Hawke struggles. It doesn’t do anything. Someone rests a hand over his eyes._

_When he wakes again he’s drowning in a river and dead-set on finding the Iron Bull._

_——_

Hawke stares at the firelight dancing on the leaves.

Someone’s talking. “Is he okay?”

“Yes. I was careful.”

“You sure? He doesn’t look okay.”

“He may be in shock. Having one’s mind tampered with is…quite violative, I understand.”

“It w—it wasn’t—“ Hawke struggles to speak. Too many things all at once. “It wasn’t you. You didn’t—it was—“

Bull comes closer, crouching. In the orange light his face is folded in concern. “What happened?”

“Tevinters,” Hawke whispers. “They took Fenris.” And then modified Hawke’s memory, sending him three days in the wrong direction, to kill a man who should be his ally.

“Fuck,” Bull mutters.

Hawke can’t answer, choked by terror. Tears well in his eyes. With the time it takes to get back north, they’ll have a week’s headstart. What are they going to do to Fenris? Or—a sob threatening to burst open in Hawke’s chest—what have they done to him already?


	3. Chapter 3

_How could I not have known? How could I not have known?_

The errors are already showing through. A karasaad’s forearm wouldn’t fit under his chin to choke him. And he’s big, but even he couldn’t bull-rush a Qunari. _How could I not have known?_ Hawke presses a hand to his mouth and tries to suppress a sob. He doesn’t really manage it.

“You can let him go,” Bull murmurs. The ice around Hawke’s leg disappears.

Gone. Fenris is gone to Tevinter, two weeks north of here, and Hawke could have pursued them if only he’d had the brains to realize it was all a trick—he’s supposed to be _clever,_ what happened to him, _how could have abandoned Fenris to this—_ “Please help me get him back.” His voice is broken and desperate, and distantly he chastises himself for it. “Please. He shouldn’t—I can’t do this by myself—“

“Hey, yeah, I’ll help you out.” Bull reaches out and rests one large hand on Hawke’s shoulder. In the shadowed gloom his face is calm and composed. It’s an unbearable comfort.

Dorian nods. “We both will.”

“Do you remember anything from the attack? Anything that could point us to where they took him?” Bull asks.

Hawke takes a deep, shaking breath and tries to focus. _You got those shackles on yet? Yes. Good. Work on this one, but don’t take too long, we have to move. Quintus, contact Salona, tell him we’ve got his elf._

“Salona,” Hawke blurts out. “That’s what one of them said.”

Bull sits back with a groan. “Fucker.”

“What? Who’s Salona?”

A grimace. “You know that Vint scheme we blew to shit on Seheron?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“It was his. Looked into it later. He lost a whole bunch of gold on it, not to mention standing. He must’ve been pissed.”

Hawke rubs his forehead, pieces of the puzzle struggling to fall together through the seething tumult of Fenris’s absence. “So that’s why he sent me after you…hoped one of us would kill the other. Suppose he wouldn’t have been bothered if I’d drowned instead. But if…” If Hawke _did_ discover the ploy, as he just has—then Salona must know he’d come after Fenris. So either he doesn’t think Hawke could pull off the rescue, or—

Bull’s grunt interrupts his thoughts. “You could’ve done it, too. Killed me. What’d you stick me with? Knocked me for a fucking loop.”

Hawke almost manages a smile. “Let’s just say it was really expensive. Would Salona know you tried to re-educate me? It, er…came up. In the memory.”

“That might have been your doing,” Dorian interjects. “As I said, it was a shoddy spell. They just sort of…planted the seed and let you fill in the rest.”

Shoddy indeed. They simply replaced human bodies with Qunari ones. Although Fenris was the same, crumpled in the grass, shuddering with pain under the thick weave of spirit magic that cloaked him…Hawke shivers a little, his nose burning, and blinks away a fresh wave of tears before they can spill from his eyes. Can’t afford the distraction. “Dorian, do you know of this Salona? Did he know a magister named Danarius?”

“Oh, I’m sure. They both served in the Senate.”

So Fenris was known as well. Will Salona try and break him? Or perhaps strip away the lyrium and sell it to make up the gold he lost on Seheron? The image of Fenris’s flayed body rises to Hawke’s mind, bleeding from deep furrows on his arms and legs, his chest and stomach, his green eyes dull and sightless, his skin gone pale and cool…

Hawke crushes his hands to his face. His back heaves in a great sob. How could he have let himself be fooled like that? And now Fenris is paying for it—it shouldn’t be Fenris, it should be him, it should be _him—_

“Hey.” Bull squeezes his shoulder. “Listen, here’s what’s gonna happen: we’ll all go back to the tavern. You get some sleep while Dorian—“

“No,” Hawke interrupts. “I’m not going to sleep when Fenris is still—“

 _“Yes,_ you will,” Bull tells him. “You need to sleep so you can process this. Dorian and I will work up a plan. Both of us know more about Tevinter than you do.”

It feels wrong, but Bull’s points are both good ones. Hawke clenches his jaw against another sob. “Fine,” he says quietly. Then a smile cracks his lips. “Although the barkeep still thinks I want Dorian dead.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it.” Bull waves a hand. “I’ll put a word in for you.”

——

When Hawke wakes up he doesn’t feel like he’s going to burst into tears at any given moment, which is a marked improvement from the previous evening. It’s strange, this crying business. He’d almost forgotten what it was like, but ever since he got back from Seheron the smallest things threaten to provoke it (Saravh presenting him with a birthday cake topped by baked plums comes to mind—who cries over plums?).

Fenris’s loss is, of course, not a small thing. Hawke flips over and rubs his eyes. Sunlight streams in through the small window. Bull lies splayed on the floor, snoring quietly. Dorian is draped over his stomach.

Hawke pulls the blanket tighter around him. No thin body, no warmth against his chest. He misses Fenris. Might never see him again.

But it won’t do any good to think about that. As long as he doesn’t know what happened, he must assume Fenris is still alive, even if that means he’s being held in a dungeon and beaten or starved or whatever it is they do to break escaped slaves. Fenris _can_ survive that. He’s the strongest man Hawke has ever met. He can survive anything, at least until Hawke arrives to get him out. 

The progress toward Highever is agonizingly slow.

It doesn’t help that Bull’s riding a damned draft horse. The bloody thing doesn’t even know how to trot, so they plod along at a sedate walk. Hawke refrains from complaining as they pass the golden fields and enter the woodlands beyond. The two of them did agree to help him, after all, even after his reprehensible actions yesterday evening. He takes a deep, calming breath and focuses on the birdsong from the trees to either side. The chirps are harder to identify, but he knows the songs and names them in his head. _Red-capped sparrow. White-spotted thrush. Waking warbler._

“You really thought I’d do that?” Bull asks gently, as they trundle down the road. “To you and Fenris?”

Hawke shakes himself and shrugs. “Didn’t think you would. But I thought you _could,_ and I saw you with my own two eyes. That was convincing enough.”

“More importantly, would you really have tortured me?” Dorian cuts in.

Hawke glances over, to where Dorian’s riding at Bull’s other side. “It’s Fenris.”

Dorian huffs. “If you kidnapped Bull, I wouldn’t torture Fenris to make _you_ talk.”

“That’s because he’d kill you if you tried.”

“Well, I’d like to think it’s because I’m a decent person—“

“Then I’m not sure what your point is, because I think we’re all aware that I’m not a decent person. However, I am efficient, perhaps precisely _because_ the idea of torturing someone to save the man I love isn’t off-limits for some arbitrary reason—“

“Would the two of you knock it off?” Bull growls. “I don’t wanna listen to this crap all the way up to Kirkwall.”

Hawke quiets. He’s never going to like Dorian, but he can at least keep his mouth shut and not insult the man who’s already saved Fenris twice at great personal risk and has just volunteered to do so again. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “That was uncalled for.”

“I understand,” Dorian replies.

Hawke wraps the reins around his hand until they dig into his palm. It’s the worry that’s got him on edge. His temper’s gotten better since he came back from Seheron, but it’s still there, ready and waiting to defend him against…

This.

Fenris is gone. Temporarily. Maybe. But still gone. And Hawke could have done something about it, only he didn’t bother to use his damned head—just let the anger carry him all the way down to Ferelden while those bastard Tevinters whisked Fenris away in the opposite direction. Bull-rushing a Qunari. A humorless smile quirks at the corner of his mouth. Ridiculous. And the Iron Bull at the center of it? Hawke saw the pain set deep in his face when he talked of what he did to Fenris in the sea-cave, the chaining, the drugging, the manipulation…why would he go back and do it all again?

Hawke pulls the reins tighter. He shouldn’t have believed it. He should have used his head. And of course, Fenris is the one who pays for it now. Hawke’s mind follows him there, into the dark— _the sound of a lash, Fenris’s toes scrabbling on the floor, blood dripping down his back and legs and pooling on the stone beneath him, the flinch, the grunt of pain, his fingers curling, how his body buckles at the impact and someone smiles in the corner—_

Hawke shivers convulsively, presses a hand to his mouth, grinds out a curse into his palm.

“Try not to think about it.”

That’s Bull. Hawke looks up.

“It’s not gonna help.” Bull keeps his eyes trained forward. “You’ll get him back and he’ll be fine. He’s resilient. Bounced back better than you did from the re-educating.”

It’s true. He could separate who he was from what had been done to him; Hawke let them bleed together, and it took far too long for him to untangle the whole mess. Couldn’t have done it without Fenris’s help. Hawke rubs his eyes. “Right.”

They ride on through the tall, patient trees.

——

The stop in Kirkwall is longer than Hawke would like, but it takes time to recall the Chargers from where they’re stationed outside the city. Hawke puts in a quick visit to Aveline, which perhaps isn’t the best idea, since when she takes his hand in both of her own he starts crying again.

She sits beside him on the divan and grasps his shoulder. “You couldn’t have known, Hawke.”

His back shudders, and he clenches his jaw, a tear slipping from the corner of his eye. “What if they’re—they’re hurting him, and I just—I just let them go—“

“Hawke, listen to me,” Aveline says. “I know you told me that you wouldn’t have made it this far without Fenris, but he’s been taken, so it’s got to be you. All right? I know you’ve got it in you, I _know._ The first day I met you, you faced down a dragon for a chance to save your family. And me. That takes real strength.” She squeezes his hand. “Bring him back, Hawke. He needs you.”

Hawke lurches forward and embraces her. She wraps her arms around his back and holds him for a long minute.

Bull comes to pick him up in the morning. The Chargers have made it back to the city, and they’re ready to head north. Saravh hugs him tight around the middle as he goes out the door.

“Got some fast horses. Some supplies.” Bull leads him down the stairs. “Got the start of a plan. Dorian knows where the guy spends his time, when we lay eyes on the place we’ll have a better idea of what to do.”

Hawke never met the old Chargers and he saw the new ones only from afar during Starkhaven’s siege of Kirkwall, although as they ride north from the city he finds a couple of familiar faces—“Harding.” He guides his horse closer to her. “Nice to see you again.”

“You too, Hawke.” Her normal good humor is somewhat diminished. “Sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

“Hawke.” That’s Hahret, her broken horns capped now in gleaming bronze, her long hair tied up into a shining white braid tipped by a vicious-looking blade. “We’ll get your partner back. I’ll kill any Vint who tries to get in your way.”

He half-smiles. “Thanks.”

“This here’s Ritts,” Bull says, pointing out a Fereldan woman near the front. “And Loranil—“ an elf with pale green vallaslin, riding beside Dorian, “—and Sigrid and Sky Watcher.” Two Avvar, a weaponless woman and a man with an enormous mace on his back.

“Pleasure to meet all of you,” Hawke murmurs.

Bull keeps them off the main road—slower, but it’s best to be safe, as Hawke can’t imagine they’ll get more than one chance. He isn’t very good company during the journey, which he feels badly about; these people have agreed to help him even without pay, and only one of them owes him anything (Hahret, after her rescue from Seheron, although he would never think of that as a debt).

But all Hawke can think of is Fenris being hurt, for days and days, alone and not knowing if anyone is coming for him. The images crowd him as he rides, Fenris bent and broken, pleading for mercy, his lyrium glow dimmed by the blood on his skin. Hawke stops reacting to it, at least, corralling it deep inside in his chest so his eyes do not well with tears and his hands do not shake. His throat aches with the effort of keep the sobs from coming out, but the looks of pity from the others fall off after he manages it, at least.

It’s eight days. Over the Vimmarks, picking their way up the forested slopes; past the Minanter, the horses splashing across a wide, lazy ford; and then across the Silent Plains. Salona lives in a small city at the northern edge—Caetium, that’s what Dorian said. The atmosphere is sombre for the first couple of days but improves rapidly, even after they enter the barren desert. The Chargers begin to remind Hawke of his days in Kirkwall before the Chantry explosion, when he and his friends could play cards at the Hanged Man every evening and never get bored of it. It took Fenris months to speak up without being asked something first, and Hawke could practically see his chest swelling with new confidence. That will be taken from him, of course, they will beat him into a cowering creature in whom the thought of disobedience invokes a reflexive terror such that serving his master becomes the _only_ way to exist, and all that confidence, all the fond memories of his home and his friends will become something he couldn’t have, not really, because _this_ is what he was meant for from the start, and everything else was only a foolish, impossible dream…

A burst of laughter from around the fire. Hawke shakes himself and rubs his eyes. There’s a great shadow at the edge of his vision—Bull, approaching. Bull never seems to linger too long with his Chargers, though he seems to have a good enough time when he joins in the merrymaking (his booming laugh is hard to miss). He lowers himself to the sand without any words and hands Hawke a flask. Hawke accepts it and takes a generous swig.

On the eighth evening they approach Caetium from the south, sifting dunes giving way to rolling hills covered in low yellow grass. Harding and Loranil disappear ahead to scout while Bull stops the rest of the company behind a rise. The sunset seeps orange over the empty landscape.

They’ve got the camp set up by the time Harding and Loranil return. Hawke pokes listlessly at the campfire.

“It’s a city, but a small one,” Harding reports. “With a big old keep in the middle. That’s probably where the magister lives.”

 _And where he’s got Fenris._ Hawke shivers a little, although it isn’t cold.

“Gates are guarded.” Loranil sits down. “Some traffic coming in and out. Slow but steady trickle.”

Bull grunts. “Good. Harding, you go in tonight, lyrium smugglers traveling by night won’t raise any eyebrows. Dorian, you go in with Hahret and Loranil tomorrow morning. Hawke, you can head inside in the afternoon.” With covers, of course: Dorian as a geological surveyor with Hahret as hired workwoman and Loranil as slave, and Hawke as a merchant of fine jewelry from around Thedas (a worldly cover to excuse his Fereldan face). It would be nice if Hawke could head in first, but he needs allies within the city before he infiltrates. Harding waves a goodbye, turning her horse west so she can circle around and come up via the road. A sturdy black box hangs off one side of her saddle. Real lyrium. Expensive, but Varric came through.

The wind blows warm through the night, Hawke lying at the edge of the camp, gazing at the stars. It feels _wrong_ to just sit here while Fenris is so close— _toes sliding across the floor, slick with blood—_

Hawke lets out a long, slow breath. The sound is lost in the dry breeze, the susurrations of the tall yellow grass. He needs to get some sleep.

They go over the plan again the next day just before Dorian and his retinue take their leave. Hawke isn’t all that excited about infiltrating the keep alone, but more bodies means more noise, and anyway, it’s easier to move around when he’s only got himself to worry about. And he is the best infiltrator, despite his size. So after Hahret helps him break in, he’s on his own.

The sun peaks in the sky. Hawke is stretching at the base of the slope, reaching for his toes—this used to be much easier; must be getting old. Bull comes over with a pack in hand. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Hawke rises and takes the pack. “Give me two days. If I’m not out by then, I’m not coming out.”

“Right.” Bull inclines his head. “So we go in and get you.”

Hawke snorts. “You’ll lose half your company. And fail. It’s a _keep_ , and he’s got mages working for him.”

“So do I. And one of them’s Vashothari.”

“Look, I appreciate it, but you’ve already done more than enough for me, considering I tried to kill you. Again.”

“Ah, no hard feelings, I get it.” Bull waves a hand. “Sure. After two days, we’ll pull out.”

Hawke eyes him. “Are you lying just to make me feel better?”

Bull grins. “Accusing me of lying? That’s hurtful.”

Hawke heaves a sigh and goes to saddle his horse. “See you soon.”

“Yeah. Hey, listen—we’re gonna get him back. He’ll be all right.”

“I hope so. And Bull? Thanks.”

He shrugs one massive shoulder. “Anytime.”

——

Leaning back against the keep wall, Hawke taps his pipe. Glowing ash scatters onto the cobbles at his feet.

The bustle of the city is dying as night falls, and the air grows cool. A relief. Wandering that bloody market all afternoon with the sun beating down on him and people crushing him in on every side was most unpleasant. But as he bent to inspect a study-looking set of leather gloves, he found a flame-haired dwarf woman beside him doing just the same thing. “Fourth watchtower to the left from the gate has the least traffic,” she murmured. “You’ll have to take out the patrol. Two guards with swords.”

He merely nodded and went on his way.

A young couple walks by, giggling to each other in the dusk. Hawke tugs his cloak tighter around his shoulders, makes sure it’s closed. No reason to show off the fact that he’s in armor. He brings the pipe to his lips but doesn’t inhale; smoking makes him cough. They disappear around the corner. The alley is deserted.

Footsteps from his right. He glances up.

A Tevinter approaches, followed by an elf and an enormous Qunari woman. The elf carries a square leather case. They draw closer. Hawke lifts himself off the wall.

As they pass in front of him the elf loses his grip and the case falls open. Stones and uncut gems scatter all over the street. The Tevinter curses loudly. “Damned elf! Those are worth more than your entire family! Pick them all up, _right now!”_

“Yes, master! I’m sorry, master!” The elf crouches, bending to his task. The Qunari woman’s gaze fixes on Hawke, and she raises her hands ever so slightly.

A strange feeling, like an ocean wave parting around him and wrapping up his entire body. He stumbles a little and catches himself on the wall.

But does not see his hand splayed on the stones. Nor the rest of him, when he looks down. Invisible.

Hawke smiles to himself. Useful trick. He tucks the pipe in his pocket, sheds his cloak, turns, and starts climbing the wall.

The keep is old, and the mortar has plenty of cracks and ridges on which to secure his fingers and toes, although not being able to see his own limbs is incredibly odd and makes him pause more than once to ascertain his handholds. But his boots cling to the stone with ease, and he only slips a couple of times. A few feet from the top his hands blossom into his vision again. Hahret and the others must have moved on. That’s fine—it’s dark, and nobody will be looking up this high anyway. Hawke finds a wide, solid ledge on which to rest his weight and settles down to listen.

Distant laughter from below. It’s a nice evening, and people are still out enjoying the weather before summer descends and the heat becomes intolerable. (It’s already bad enough, as far as he’s concerned, but the Tevinters don’t seem to care.) Hawke focuses on the long walkway above him. Nothing yet. Tempting to just hop over the parapet and go from there, but if he’s missed their footsteps and they spot him, he’s blown. So he must be patient. That’s fine. He’s fond of patience; there are few better weapons.

He doesn’t wait long. Footsteps approach from the left. Hawke presses himself closer to the wall, the rough stone cool against his cheek. Only two of them. No torchlight—that’s good, they must not have lit one yet. That means he can take them out here instead of following them to one of the watchtowers. The footsteps draw closer and then pass by above him, accompanied by the faint jingling of chain mail. Hawke grimaces. He’ll wear chain mail if it’ll help him pass unnoticed, but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it. It’s so bloody _noisy._

He waits a handful of seconds, then climbs the last few feet and slips over the parapet.

His boots make no sound on the stone, and his dagger slips silently from its sheath. The two guards stroll down the wall. Hawke almost feels sorry for them. They’re trained for cutpurses, petty thieves, and the odd fleeing slave. Not for a man who’s spent his last fifteen years killing everything from highwaymen to Qunari to demons.

They can’t be allowed to scream. That’s important. Hawke pads up behind them and wraps his arm around the first man’s neck.

A choked grunt but no more. He’ll be drawing very soon, so Hawke is quick with the second, his dagger in a reverse grip to lend it power, landing with a hard chop across the poor bastard’s throat. He gropes at the gaping wound, his eyes gone wide. And the first one’s drawing—Hawke grabs his hand and pulls, the foible levering sideways, the sword stuck halfway out the scabbard. Then he twines his foot around the man’s ankle and yanks.

They go to their knees together, Hawke’s arm still locked in place. He squeezes, applying pressure to the sides of the neck. The man flushes red, and he tries again to draw his sword, but Hawke keeps it jammed in the scabbard. From there he just has to wait a few more seconds while the man reaches back and claws clumsily at his face (he ducks his head to protect his eyes). Then at last the struggling drops off, the man’s body slackening.

Hawke maintains the hold for a bit longer just to make sure; then he lets go and stands, assessing. Both of the guards are of average size, which means there’s no way in Oblivion their uniforms will fit on Hawke. He sighs to himself and slits the second guard’s throat as well. The man wakes at the pain, gurgling, trying to press the wound closed. Blood spurts out from between his fingers.

There. Off to a good start. Hawke heads for the nearest watchtower.

The keep shouldn’t quite be asleep yet; he expects a few people still wandering the halls. Not ideal for hiding, but with luck someone will mention Fenris’s whereabouts and he won’t have to search the entire bloody thing. The keep is quite large. He opens the wooden hatch and descends the stairs down the watchtower with caution, listening for anyone approaching. Nothing yet. Now, what did Dorian say about Tevinter keeps—living quarters on the higher floors, just like in the south. That’s fine. He stops at the highest landing. No sound from the other side of the door.

He pushes it open.

Torches flicker along the walls in spiked sconces. Hawke turns left, towards the middle of the keep. Funny, he was never this nervous when he went after rich Tevinters with Fenris. Nice having an extra pair of eyes to watch one’s back. But he’s deep in enemy territory, and luxuries are few. He just needs to stay alert and remain calm. Experience has taught him that if he acts like everything’s normal, people will want to believe it.

Around a corner. A very long hallway. Someone at the far end, coming toward him. Shit. Hawke goes forward, walking at an even pace; from this far they won’t notice his Fereldan features, and a loss of composure will arouse suspicion. There’s a side passage a few yards ahead. Good. He takes it.

A faint noise from further down. The corridor is narrow, and Hawke proceeds slowly, searching for the source. It’s a murmur, sounds like…conversation. The right pitch and timbre. Hawke cocks his head as he goes, passing doors on either side. The blooms of torchlight slip over him. Closer, closer…

A door in the right wall. There’s a torch next to it, and Hawke takes the pipe from his pocket as he leans in. If anyone turns down this hallway, he’ll simply be a man lighting his pipe from the nearest available source, impractical as it may be. He quiets his breathing and focuses in on the conversation.

It’s in Tevene, which is annoying, but with effort Hawke can follow. A man speaks first. “…then I woke up in the infirmary.”

A woman. “Maker. When I got the letter…oh, I’m just glad you’re all right. How was your first real food in days, eh?”

A laugh. “It was incredible. Only complaint was they ran out of sweetbread.”

“I saw you stuffing your face, how many’d you eat?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Four? Five? I could have had twice that much.”

“Well.” The woman’s voice drops, and Hawke must strain to hear. “If you ask the chefs nicely, they’ll put some aside for you from the morning batch.”

A groan. “Could’ve told me that before I changed into my nightshirt.”

“Not to worry. I’ll be back before you know it.”

 _Fuck._ Hawke abandons his post and strides down the hall—hears the door creaking open behind him. He evens out his pace, takes a long, calming breath—

“Ser! Excuse me, ser!”

Fuck. He wants to keep going but she might chase after him and get herself a closer look. Instead he turns, his back to a torch so that shadows hide his face. Of course, he’s still in bloody armor, but it’s leather—with luck she’ll mistake it for traveling clothes. “What is it?” he says, remembering his Tevene.

The woman is short and stocky, with finely embroidered but practical robes. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been staying here long, I was wondering if you could direct me to…”

She trails off. Hawke makes no move, not yet. She’s still weighing him, and the decision might fall in his favor…

The woman takes a stuttered step back. “Who—who are you?”

The man’s voice from beyond the open door. “Atera? What’s going on?”

Hawke plucks a knife from the sheaf at his back and throws.

She’s already slipping behind the door, and the knife only catches her arm. Her shout of pain echoes off the stone. Damn it all. Hawke darts forward, throwing his shoulder into the door. The woman cries out as it smashes her into the wall.

Movement from the corner of his eye. The man in his nightshirt, standing next to a bed, his hands waving—

Casting.

Hawke charges. Static rips through the air, and his muscles seize up, making him stumble; but he staggers to his feet again and tackles the man to the floor. The two of them fall in an awkward tangle, and Hawke gropes for his dagger-hilt, finds it and draws—

Searing pain shoots through him from head to toe. Electricity. Hawke jerks, collapsing, curling up on the carpet. The bastard next to him’s still dazed, so—

Fuck. _Fuck._ Hawke, gasping in agony, climbs to his hands and knees. The woman. She’s a mage as well. Just his luck to find a pair of them. He heaves himself to his feet even as the magic seethes and sparks over him—

A heavy _thunk_ at the rear of his skull puts him back on the floor. The throbbing makes his vision dance. He blinks up, dazed, pushing himself weakly up to an elbow. The man is holding a small pewter bust of some insufferable-looking magister. He brings it down again.

Splitting pain over Hawke’s temple. That’s the last thing he knows before the world goes black.

——

The pain’s still there when he wakes.

Hawke winces, rubbing his temple. It feels grimy. His fingers come away smeared in dark red. Oh. Dried blood.

“Oi. The bastard’s awake.”

Hawke thinks of sitting up. That’s probably going to make his head hurt even worse. “That’s not very kind,” he mumbles.

“Says the bloke who killed two people. And tried to kill two more.”

“Fair point.” Hawke steels himself and sits up. It makes his head hurt even worse. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hey, go let Salona know the Fereldan’s come to.”

“Right!”

Retreating footsteps. Hawke opens his eyes.

There are bars. He’s in a cell. Better than being dead. Outside the cell a pair of guards sit on upturned crates. There are two more empty crates; the one in the middle of the arrangement has half a deck of cards on top of it. The guards seem to have lost interest in him. Fine. Gives him a moment to assess the situation.

Not dead. Salona wants something with him. Probably to figure out how he broke the ruse and got into the keep—and, most importantly, who else might be with him. Bad practice to leave loose ends running about in one’s city. All right, that’ll earn him a few days of torture. But it can’t be any worse than what they’ll have put Fenris through, and anyway, it’ll give him time enough to think of a plan to find Fenris and break out of this damned place. They’ve taken his armor, leaving him in just his shirt and trousers, which means he hasn’t got any resources. But he is quite clever, not to mention a _very_ good liar.

He’d expected this, in truth. Had _hoped_ for something different, but the city is densely populated and the keep no doubt full of people, one of whom would have spotted him sooner or later. It would have been nice to find out where Fenris was held before then. But it isn’t over yet.

The guards lurch to their feet, abandoning their game, and make two sharp salutes. Hawke rises slowly, wincing at the throbbing in his head.

Salona sweeps into view.

He’s of middle age, clean-shaven, and wears the same snobbish look every Altus has, peering at Hawke with narrowed eyes as if regarding a piece of meat that might have gone to spoil. “So. You discovered the trick.”

Hawke comes forward, ambling, and rests his forearm against the bars. “Where’s Fenris?”

Salona’s mouth opens in a glistening smile. “Ah, yes, Fenris. Came all the way up here looking for him, did you? You must _dearly_ want him back. Such a shame you ended up in a dungeon instead.”

Hawke lets the magister’s words part around him as a rock splitting a river. “Where’s Fenris?” he asks again.

“You know, we had the Tal-Vashoth in hand on Seheron.” Salona’s smile levels out. “We were learning from them. We might’ve made real progress. And then you and that accursed sellsword had to go and ruin everything.”

Hawke wants to jump on that, _sorry, was that_ your _money we wasted,_ your _reputation we destroyed, oh, I just feel awful—_ but he maintains his composure. Jabs won’t get him anywhere. “Where’s Fenris?” he repeats.

“Yes.” Salona’s smile returns. “Your precious Fenris.” He snaps his fingers.

Shuffling down the hall. Salona looks over and holds out his arm.

A third guard comes into view, Fenris by his side.

Like an apparition. Hawke grasps the bars on instinct and nearly reaches out—so close, he’s _right there,_ but they’d never be allowed to touch. Fenris is not, in fact, beaten or bloodied or maimed. Instead he’s dressed in a tailored shirt and trousers, silver-grey fabric patterned with delicate vines in light blue and white. His hair is tied back and braided with a single red ribbon. He looks…healthy. Rested and well-nourished. His hands are clasped in front of him.

“Fenris.” Relief swells in Hawke’s chest, with an edge of—something, he can’t tell, Fenris is _still alive—_ “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

Salona is still smiling. Fenris watches Hawke uncertainly for a moment; then he shrinks back, slipping behind Salona. “I’m sorry, master, should I know this man?”


	4. Chapter 4

Hawke feels suddenly as if he is falling over a very great distance. He jolts, wavering, and grasps at the bars. This can’t be real. This can’t have happened. “F—Fenris? It’s me. It’s Hawke.”

Fenris gazes back with wide green eyes, half-hidden behind Salona’s shoulder. No flicker of recognition, no intimation that this is all just some clever ruse like the ones Hawke employs so often. Instead he just looks unsure. Afraid.

It can’t be gone. It can’t all be gone.

“It’s all right, Fenris.” Salona rests a hand at his back. “Here, why don’t you go wait for me upstairs?”

“Yes, master.” He turns to go, the guard at his elbow.

“Fenris? Fenris!” Hawke watches him retreat down the hall, still adrift—this  _ isn’t happening,  _ this must be some awful dream. Hawke slams his fist against the bars as Fenris disappears. “You  _ know _ me! We were  _ together, _ please, you  _ have _ to remember—“

Then he grunts as a blast of force magic thuds into his chest and sends him sprawling onto the floor. The back of his skull cracks into the stone, and he grimaces, pressing a hand to the spot. Salona sighs. “No need for that.”

Hawke sits up, pain lancing through his skull. “What did you do to him? Why doesn’t he know who I am?”

Salona glances to the right, keeping his silence for a moment; then he leans forward and says in a low voice, “Because I destroyed his memories. All of them. He’s a new man now.”

Destroyed his—

“You can’t do that,” Hawke says numbly. “Please give them back.”

Salona shrugs. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. They simply don’t exist anymore. There’s nothing for him to remember.”

No. No. For Fenris to have come so far, to have spent thirteen years in Kirkwall and places beyond building himself up from what Danarius had crushed him down to—for that to all have been wiped away— “Please.” Hawke feels as if the breath has been stolen from his chest. “I’ll do anything you want. Just please don’t do this to him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“As I said, it’s already done. As for what I want, why don’t you tell me how exactly you broke that spell my mage laid on you?”

Hawke blinks, uncomprehending, the bleak swell of Fenris’s loss sweeping away everything else; then he shakes himself and rubs his eyes. “No.”

“Are you sure? I’ll get the information by whatever means I must, and some of those means are quite unpleasant.”

Hawke stares at the stone floor. There was a reason…there was a reason he wanted this. “No.”

“Very well.” Salona turns. “Find out what he knows. I’d rather not have to resort to blood magic, I don’t like to think what will happen to his mind if we subject him to it twice in two weeks.”

“Yes, ser.”

Robes sweeping away, silhouettes moving beyond the bars in the flicker of torchlight. Creaking as the door swings open. His wrists lifted, metal cuffs closing around them, the shackles clicking shut. Hawke isn’t paying attention.  _ I’m sorry, master, should I know this man? _

“Right then.” Someone kneeling in front of him. “All you’ve got to do is tell us who broke that spell.”

Hawke can’t think about this right now. He shakes his head. “No.”

A heavy sigh. “As you wish.”

———

It hurts.

There’s a lash. They hook the shackles to a post in the floor. It hurts. The rhythm, the  _ swish _ in the air followed by the slapping down on his back, the way his breath rushes from his lungs and his body buckles at the impact. Low grunts and moans wheeze from his throat. 

It hurts.

It registers sometimes, when the searing agony is just enough to break through the blunt disbelief, the empty pleading with himself for it to be just another blood-magic ruse. If only it didn’t make so much bloody sense. Why would a magister waste the time on breaking Fenris? His value isn’t, like Hawke’s, in what he knows, but rather in what he _ is, _ the lyrium that courses through his skin—not simply markings, he told Hawke once; not a brand burned into him but something grown, something alive, a new vasculature as integral to him as the one that ferries the blood to and from his defiant heart. He was a little afraid when he confessed that, the soft blue glow of the lyrium tracing his cheekbones as the two of them huddled together beneath Hawke’s cloak in the cool spring night…

What will he be afraid of now?

Someone says something. Hawke misses it. The lash bites into the sole of his foot this time, and he hisses, curling his toes. 

“Tell us who helped you get up here.”

He thinks about telling them. It hurts. 

Then he starts thinking of Fenris again and forgets about whether or not he should tell them anything. The lash. His spine arches as he tries halfheartedly to avoid the next strike. It comes anyway. It hurts. He thinks about Fenris. 

Some of it is too much, his smile exquisitely tender, his laugh nearly enough to make Hawke flinch. So Hawke lets the senselessness crowd that out too, the great void that’s left of him now that Fenris is gone, the nothingness that fills up every inch of his body such that the agony can gain no purchase. Sometimes it feels like a pressure that bulges against him, waiting for him to give. And when he does it will flood out, drowning the house they built together outside Kirkwall, the garden behind it thick with herbs and vegetables in leafy green, the home in Hightown where they go to see Aveline and Donnic and Saravh, the high office in the keep where Varric invites them every week to share a bottle of wine and laugh until well after the sun’s gone down, the cliffside over the Waking Sea where they were going to go for a picnic on their anniversary before Fenris was taken away to this terrible place, the emptiness pouring through and rising high to cover over all of it until the surface has calmed and grown smooth as the river in the early dawn, its mirrored surface reflecting nothing at all. 

The lash.

It hurts. A faint impingement in the senselessness. Hawke blinks, his ribs expanding as he gasps in a breath. He thinks sweat is trickling down his ribs before he realizes it’s blood.

“Tell us who broke that spell.”

Should he tell them? Should he give up Bull and the others? It might stop hurting.

_ I’m sorry, master, should I know this man? _

The lash. Hawke’s body buckles. But he isn’t paying attention anymore.

——

Salona visits later. 

Hawke is curled up on the floor. Red-brown splotches dot the stone in front of him. His back is split open—he feels the edges shifting when he moves. It burns.  _ Wound pain, _ he thinks, as when categorizing new injuries. Yes. Obviously. They were whipping him for…he doesn’t know how long. There aren’t any windows down here to tell him how much time has passed.

That’s all right. He doesn’t really care.

Salona visits and sits on one of the crates the guards have just vacated. 

He doesn’t say anything at first so Hawke forgets he’s there until he breaks his silence. “Fenris is adapting quite well, you know.”

Hawke manages to wrench his gaze from the dried blood on the floor down to Salona beyond the bars. 

“It’s easy to tell he used to be a slave.” Salona leans back against the wall, his hands crossed over his knee. “He’s settling into the old patterns rather smoothly. Already he’s begun keeping his eyes trained on the floor. On his own initiative. I hadn’t even mentioned it.”

Hawke braces a hand on the floor. Several of the lash-marks wrap around his upper arm, and he grimaces as the skin stretches.

“I’ve just started to withhold things from him,” Salona continues. “He likes fruit, I’ve been sharing mine with him in the mornings. Yesterday I didn’t give him any. He didn’t say anything. I only caught him staring once.”

At last Hawke manages to sit up, leaning sideways against the wall. The grit chafes his cuts but he doesn’t care enough to move. “Please don’t,” he murmurs. 

“What’s that?”

“Please don’t do this to him,” Hawke says quietly. “He deserves better.”

“There’s no need to worry. I’m not like the rest of those sadists in Minrathous. I’m not going to hurt him. I’m certainly not going to force him. I’ve been married to my wife for thirty-three years. We have a son and a daughter.” Salona inspects his fingernails. “And anyway, it isn’t Fenris who destroyed months of my hard work on Seheron.”

Hawke discovers he’s chuckling. It’s faintly hysteric, but that’s all right.  _ “That _ was months of hard work? And it only took two people a handful of hours to ruin it? That  _ is _ a bit embarrassing.”

A frosty pause. Then Salona stands. “Perhaps I will punish him after all.”

Hawke’s gut seizes, and he staggers to his feet, his palms scraping against the stone wall. “No, please, please, I’m sorry—“

“A shame, really.” Salona turns and starts walking away. “He’ll be so confused. He won’t know what he did to deserve it.”

“Please don’t,  _ please,  _ I didn’t mean it—“ Hawke lurches to the bars, pressing against them to watch Salona’s retreating back. “Please don’t hurt him!”

But Salona is gone, and the guards are returning in his place. Hawke steps back, and back again. How could he have been so bloody  _ stupid— _ he hasn’t got the smallest scrap of leverage and Salona has everything, Salona has  _ Fenris. _

What’s left of him. His memories are gone. The person he was is gone. 

The guards don’t come in this time, only settle on their crates again and resume their game of cards. Not hurting him yet. They’re letting him stew. Hoping his grave error just now will wear him down some.

It’s working. Hawke sits in the middle of the floor, grasping his knees. his chest tight. He thinks of Fenris under the lash now, confused, afraid, pleading for answers. He won’t know why he’s being hurt. Without any other explanation, he’ll think it was random, just another feature of his new life here. Or he’ll believe that he  _ did _ earn it, somehow, not through his actions but through some fault or failing innate to him, some flaw that’s simply part of who he is. Then he might understand—understand why it’s justified—

Hawke presses a hand to his eyes and tightens his jaw. Wouldn’t do to break down. Wouldn’t do to—

He breathes in harshly through his nose. Aveline’s words come back to him.  _ It’s got to be you, Hawke. _

What’s the bloody point?

——

They hurt him again after that.

There’s a healer this time. That’s interesting. Something registers. They brought a healer. They haven’t taken any fingers or toes. Salona wanted his mind intact.

No permanent damage. They’re probably thinking of using him. His skills are formidable, and with Fenris as hostage they must know he’ll do anything they ask. Hawke wonders if he’d rather work for them or instead find a way to kill himself in some nice, peaceful location, with a poison that’ll simply send him off to a sleep from which he’ll never wake. But they might hurt Fenris anyway in retaliation. 

It’s worse this time. The hurting. The swell of nothingness inside him has started to recede, and the pain is insistent. Hawke bears it for now, more out of stubbornness than anything else. The stubbornness won’t work for long. He’ll need a reason to keep going. Hard to dredge one up at the moment.

Eventually they leave him alone again to give him some time to think.

The emptiness is down to a patchy fog, which Hawke isn’t especially happy about. He needed that. But he can’t lie here forever, waiting to die. He has to…

Has to what? Fenris is gone. Hawke discovers his face has tensed in a sort of strange smile. That’s why they risked leaving him alive after the initial attack. Even if he did make it here, Fenris would still belong to Salona—Hawke doesn’t know what sort of lies Fenris has been told, but Salona can’t have spent decades in the Senate without honing his silver tongue to a fine point.

So even if Hawke does manage to get out of this cell and find Fenris in the keep above, getting him out will be impossible. He won’t be able to help Hawke fight, for one. And he’ll almost certainly be unwilling. And afterward…when Hawke fails, Salona might—the image of Fenris under the lash again, bloodied and cringing, begging for mercy or even just understanding—

Hawke curls up, the fragile scabs on his chest and back folding and breaking as he presses his hands to his face. Fenris was so strong, so  _ strong, _ but Hawke saw what it took to get there, the years he spent deferent and biting his tongue until finally— _ finally  _ he began fight for himself without any shame, his eyes flashing summer-green not with anger but a simple demand for consideration and respect—

But all of that is gone now. Hawke saw the uncertainty earlier, how he shrank behind Salona’s shoulder as a frightened child. He’ll be taught again that respect is not something he is allowed, and the person he was, or could be, will wither without it. Not a person anymore but a tool. A weapon for Salona. 

Hawke would do it all over again. Would take him from here, would show him that he can make his own choices— _ deserves _ to do so, deserves a life that belongs to him and no one else. No matter how long it took, regardless of whether or not Fenris, this new Fenris, chose to be with him. Chose, even, to leave.

If he did leave—well. It would be all right, of course. Hawke would simply go up to that high cliff on the Waking Sea, where the waves thunder against the rock far below…

But none of that matters. Hawke always knew escape would be difficult at best, but with an unwilling (or unconscious) passenger it’ll be impossible. He remembers his conversation with Bull just before they parted.  _ “If I’m not out by then, I’m not coming out.” “Right. So we go in and get you.” _

Still, Hawke’s not counting on it.  _ “You’ll lose half your company. And fail.”  _ Bull isn’t stupid enough to throw away the lives of his men on a fool’s hope, especially after the grievous wound he suffered—still suffers—from that terrible day on the Storm Coast.

The tumble of thoughts stops then, giving Hawke, at long last, a moment of untainted peace. He’s going to lie here for a while until they come hurt him some more, and then later Salona will pry open his head with blood magic to discover that Bull helped him get up here, by which point the Chargers will hopefully be well on their way back south. It’s possible the blood magic will turn him into a drooling idiot, which might be nice. Otherwise he’ll be forced to go carry out…assassinations, probably, considering this is Tevinter, on the threat of Fenris being punished for even the smallest hint of subterfuge or disobedience. And Salona will continue to bury Fenris under a thousand lies— _ you are small, you are weak, you are not worthy. _ And Fenris won’t have anyone to help dig him out this time. No Fog Warriors, no friends. 

A pool of liquid spreading slowly under Hawke’s side and soaking into the top of his trousers. Oh. He’s bleeding again. That’s all right. 

He supposes he had to lose sometime. He only wishes Fenris had been spared. But that’s his own fault too, for taking the Seheron job in the first place. He’s had a lot of faults. He thinks about Carver and Bethany for the first time in a long time, Carver’s body crushed in that ogre’s fist, Bethany’s face gone curdled-grey with the Taint. His mother.

It was always going to end like this. He can’t be surprised, really. Can’t be surprised at all. 

Shuffling. “Now wait a minute—“ One of the guards. “What’re you doing down here?”

“I—I apologize for startling you.”

Fenris’s voice is like soapy water to the wounds on Hawke’s chest, a searing sting that makes him twist upright and gasp in a rasping breath. 

Fenris stands just outside the bars. The two guards face him, hands on their weapons; but Fenris’s hands are clasped before him, and he stares at the floor even as he speaks again. “I have been given orders to…”

He trails off, his lips pressed together. The nearer guard relaxes, his hand slipping from his blade. “Well? To what?”

“To…comfort the prisoner.” Fenris folds his arms convulsively over his chest. 

There’s a moment of silence. Then the guard makes a noise of disgust, while his partner bursts out laughing. Fenris takes a stuttered step back.

The guard heaves a sigh. “Andraste guide us all. Is this really necessary?”

“Come on.” His partner smacks him in the arm. “Open the door. You heard him, he’s got orders.”

No.

No, no, no. “No,” Hawke says, the word falling strained and hoarse from his lips.

The second guard grins at him. “What’s wrong? Thought you’d be gagging for this after what you been through.”

Hawke’s heart thuds, a twinge lancing sharp in his chest, assassin’s wire laced through his ribs and pulled tight. “Don’t. Fenris, you don’t have to do this—“

“I—please, I would simply like to carry out my orders and return to my master,” he says, all in a rush. 

“You heard him.” The second guard nudges his partner again. “Open the door and let him carry out his orders.”

The man lets out a resigned groan, then fumbles at his belt for the keys and unlocks the door. It swings wide. 

Fenris, hesitant, comes inside. 

“No,” Hawke says instantly, and scrambles back until his shoulders hit the wall. “Stay away from me.” He’s not going to be one more awful thing Fenris is made to endure in the breaking of his will—

Fenris flinches, stopping at the edge of the cell, his silver hair shining in the firelight. Behind him the second guard grins, watching. “I…please.” Fenris’s gaze stays locked on the stone at his feet. “I…do not wish to fail my master. I do not know what he—” Fenris cuts himself off and takes a breath. “Please.”

Failure. That means punishment, no doubt about it. Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ What’s worse? Fenris takes a step closer, then another. Hawke tries to crawl away but his back is against the wall. Refuse again, and send him back to Salona for some unknown method of discipline? Or let him do as Salona wishes and become accomplice to— _ participate _ in his rape? Hawke shakes his head, his eyes pricking as Fenris approaches. “Please—please, I don’t want to—“

Fenris kneels down, sitting astride Hawke’s hips. 

Hawke grabs his waist, staining the fine silver fabric with blood, and tries to hold him away. But Fenris reaches out—as he’s done so many times before—and strokes Hawke’s face with thin fingers. No. No. “N-n—“ The word catches on a sob in Hawke’s throat. This isn’t right. This  _ isn’t right. _ What should he do? Wrest himself away and vow not to touch Fenris again? Allow him to complete this awful deed as hastily as possible? Or act as they once did, in those lazy mornings in their home outside Kirkwall, in the hopes that one of his destroyed memories might reassemble itself from the ashes left behind? Or perhaps no such miracle would happen and he would be left to wonder why this stranger fucking him was pretending such dramatic love, such inappropriate tenderness—

Fenris grasps Hawke’s shoulder and leans forward. 

Hawke turns his head away and Fenris’s lips press instead to his cheek, soft and dry. He smells of citron and some northern flower. Hawke’s throat locks up, his eyes squeezing shut. A kiss at the corner of his mouth—

A soft whisper in his ear, barely audible. “Hawke, I don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to come after me.” Another kiss at his neck. “But I hope you have a plan to get us both out of here.”


	5. Chapter 5

For a moment Hawke sits perfectly still, while Fenris kisses his cheek, his temple.

Then he lunges forward—tries to, doesn’t even make it off the wall with Fenris’s hand braced hard against his shoulder. Right. That’s right. He can’t show it yet. They don’t know. The guards.

“I will need help with the guards. They must not be allowed to shout.” The soft whisper again. “Now throw me off of you.”

That’s the last thing he wants to do—Fenris, _Fenris,_ Hawke wants to touch him, to kiss him, to ask if he’s all right—but Fenris squeezes his shoulder, just a little. _Focus, Hawke._

He grabs Fenris by the waist and heaves him to one side. _“Get away from me!”_

Fenris tumbles aside, and his back thuds into the stone floor. Hawke climbs to his feet— _pain,_ so much it steals the breath out of him—climbs to his feet and braces himself against the wall. “No. I’m not doing this. You go back to Salona and tell him if he wants to see me _comforted,_ he can come do it himself.”

Fenris rises slowly, uncertain—Maker, he’s good—and backs away. “I—very well.”

The leering guard groans. “Oh, come on, mate. You’re going to pass that up?”

Hawke bares his teeth in a grin. “Maybe _you’d_ like to comfort me instead?”

The man makes a face as his partner fumbles with the keys. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

Close now. Hawke leans a little on his braced arm. Hurts. Hadn’t noticed how much he hurts. The one with the keys pulls the door open. The voyeur is still slouching against the bars. Good. Fenris takes a few hesitant steps toward the door.

When he uncoils Hawke’s heart aches at the beauty of it, the grace with which his hand slices through the air and jabs into the man’s throat. Hawke has already pushed himself off the wall. The voyeur squawks out “What are you—“ instead of shouting immediately, although he _will_ shout in a split-second so Hawke jams an arm through the bars and folds it savagely around his neck. The man rasps out a noise of surprise and pulls at Hawke’s arm, going for his blade with the other hand. Hawke darts out and grabs his wrist. An awkward hold, but he just has to—

—wait for Fenris to finish dispatching the other one and then come over to drive his borrowed sword up through the roof of the man’s open mouth. He waits until Hawke has released his hold before clearing the blade; blood fountains from the corpse’s mouth as it slips to the floor.

Fenris makes a noise of disgust and kneels, cleaning the sword of gore.

Hawke comes out of the cell, his legs unsteady beneath him, seized by doubt. Fenris stands, inspecting the blade, and glances up. Is this real? Is it really him? Hawke reaches out and cups his face with bloodied fingers. “F—Fenris?”

“Yes, it’s me. My memories are intact and have never been otherwise.” He crouches, putting the sword down and grasping one of the corpses below the armpits. “Now help me get them in the cell.”

Right. Concealing the bodies. Hawke takes the other corpse and drags it backward, placing it next to its partner at the rear wall of the cell. Fenris inspects them both. “This armor won’t fit you.”

“No.” Neither of them come close to approximating his size.

 _“Venhedis.”_ Fenris straightens, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Perhaps you could explain to me why exactly you thought it was a good idea to come up here and get yourself captured? I must admit I’ve having difficulty seeing the advantages.”

“Because I—“ Hawke finds his voice trembling—from surprise, pain, exhaustion, all of them, he isn’t sure. “I was afraid of what Salona was doing to you.”

Fenris rounds on him. “Hawke, _I can walk through walls!_ You can’t! I was planning to simply slip away as soon as the opportunity presented itself, but now I have to find away to get you out as well, which will be _much_ more difficult!”

Hawke flinches back. “I—I’m sorry. I was just—I was terrified, he’s a magister, and you…Fenris, you were enslaved for ten years.”

Fenris shuts his eyes and lets out a long breath. When he opens them again his gaze lingers on the floor, on the corpses by his feet. “No, Hawke, I’m sorry. I should not be scolding you. I just—I was afraid as well, when Salona brought me down here and I heard your voice that first night. I could not bear to lose you, Hawke. Anything else, serving Salona for a month, a year, I could bear it if I knew you were alive. But if something happened to you…” He looks up again, and his face folds in concern as he comes closer. “You’re hurt.”

Hawke glances down at himself. Many of the scabs that cross his chest have broken, and blood gleams in the cracked remnants, the glistening spots reminding him unpleasantly of the little black beetles that come out in force in the summer and collect on their porch railing. He’s sure his back looks no better. Splotches of blue-purple bloom beneath the wounds as well, from when the guards got bored with the normal routine. He shakes his head. “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

Fenris arches an eyebrow. Oh. Hawke winces. “Maybe not all right. But I can fight.”

“Mm. I’m afraid you will need to. I can get us to the gate, but it’s closed at this hour—“

“Forget the gate. Get us up on the walls, on the north side near the chapel. Bull and the Chargers can get us out from there.”

“Ah. I was wondering if you had come alone. Very well then. The barracks is just down the hall—we should kill them before they’ve been alerted. If I draw their attention, can you aid me?”

Hawke nods at his finely tailored outfit. “Only if you put on some armor. You’re wearing _pyjamas,_ for Andraste’s sake.“

Fenris smiles.

The lyrium glow bursts out of him, light in vibrant blue spilling over the stones, flowing up the walls and splashing across the ceiling. Right. “I have had to suppress it,” Fenris says. “The sensation was…not pleasant. I am eager to use it again. Rest assured, the lyrium will protect me.”

Hawke sighs. “Is that a promise?”

“It is. I am not leaving you, Hawke.”

“Fine, I believe you. But Fenris—what _happened_ to you? Why did Salona think he took your memories?”

“I’ll explain when we have a moment. Come.” He turns and leaves the cell, retrieving the blade he left there. Hawke takes the other, drawing it from the dead man’s scabbard. The blue glow surrounds them as they go, overpowering the wan flicker of torchlight; but Fenris leashes it, and it condenses close to his skin, flowing over him from head to toe. _Armor,_ Hawke thinks. Fenris has told him that it won’t stop a chop or a strong thrust, but it can push a stab off to one side or send a hasty edge glancing. Hawke hopes it’ll be enough.

It will be. Fenris’s posture is fluid, predatory. He’s angry. He won’t let a few unpracticed guards best him, armor or no.

An open door ahead, the murmur of conversation drifting through. Fenris raises one hand, the other closed lightly around his weapon. Hawke stops. They’ve done this before, and he knows how it goes.

Fenris darts inside.

A yelp that quickly breaks off into a terrified gurgle. Then a burst of shouting. Hawke edges closer, waiting until the cluster of thumps and grunting moves further from the doorway. Then he slips through.

They’re in the center of the room, hemmed in on either side by rows of cots. A half-dozen men in shirts and trousers, with a pair of corpses by Hawke’s feet. A couple of the men have got the right idea and gone for their weapons. A couple more have just realized that even with the overwhelming advantage of numbers, they aren’t going to beat the glowing elf. They turn to run.

Hawke kills them.

The first gets a sword-thrust to the heart, up beneath the ribs. The second spins and tries to go back the other way; Hawke clears his blade, lunges forward, and hacks it into the side of the man’s neck. The first one makes a grab as he goes down—shit—fingers wrapping around Hawke’s wrist and dragging him sideways. Hawke stumbles, off-balance. Another, coming straight at him. Armed. Hawke parries the slash, tries to yank his wrist free and fails. The guards facing him down has a spark of inspiration and aims a stab that side, since it’s held captive and all—bastard, apparently he hasn’t completely forgotten his training—Hawke arcs away and tries to parry, but it’s weak at this angle and the blade cuts into his side, skating off his ribs. _Ow._ He makes a poor decision and lashes out with one foot, smashing it into the man’s knee.

It works, which is good, because if it hadn’t he would have been standing on one foot with this fucker’s grimy little hand still clamped around his damned wrist and that would have made him easy pickings. But it works. The man shouts, bending forward as his leg buckles. Hawke whips his blade up.

It’s blocked. By a forearm, and his weapon is dragged out to the side as the man’s arm flails. Fuck. Open. He’s wide open, and the man’s sword is already striking out—

Only to clatter to the floor, the man’s whole body gone limp at once. He crumples to reveal Fenris standing there, clothes spattered with blood. “That.” He tugs his blade from the base of the man’s skull. “Was a bit too close.”

The death grip finally slackens enough for Hawke to tug his wrist away. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Fenris rubs his eyes with the back of his sword hand. “And yet you did anyway.”

Hawke cringes. “Er—maybe we can find me some armor?”

“That would be welcome. Although a shirt first, I think.”

They manage to stuff him into one of the less bloody shirts, although all the chain mail is hopeless; but Fenris finds a key hung on the wall that opens the armory down the hall, and there Hawke’s armor is stuffed into the corner, his poisons still hidden at the waist, the sheaves of throwing knives still sewn tight to the back. “Oh, thank the Maker,” he groans. Thought he’d have to wear chainmail. He sits down. “Will you help me with it?”

Lifting his arms over his head is very painful, the cut-up skin on his back and chest stretching with the motion, and the first time he tries it he hisses and hugs himself. Agitation crosses Fenris’s face, his fingers tightening on the armor; Hawke takes a deep breath and tries again. This time they get the armor over his head. Hawke takes the lower edge of the stiff leather chest plate and pulls it down, squeezing his eyes shut as the rough shirt rubs against his broken scabs.

“They bound me.”

He opens his eyes.

Fenris frowns at the armor, adjusting it so it sits as it’s supposed to. “I made them work for it. I made them pay for it. I killed one of them when they grew complacent. But the others used his blood to reinforce their magic. So yes, they bound me. It was…unpleasant. I fought as hard as I could, but I grew tired. Even the lyrium could only carry me so far.”

He tightens the straps over Hawke’s wounded ribs first. Hawke gasps at the pain, but it’ll keep the blood inside him.

“There were more mages, where they brought me. Salona, I remembered him from my days in Tevinter. He told me the same. I spat in his face. He smirked at me. That did not bode well.” Fenris moves to Hawke’s waist, pulling the straps through their buckles. “They lay me out on a stone table surrounded by…components. I do not know what they were. Salona stood above me. It was more blood magic, I could tell that. Could feel it invading my mind, exposing my memories, cutting into them as a knife parting flesh. That’s when I realized what he was doing.”

Fenris takes one of Hawke’s arms, adjusting the plate that covers his forearm. “I do not think I have ever been more afraid. What I’ve seen, what I’ve done since my escape—without them, I would be a shell again. A weapon for Salona’s _filthy_ hands.” His lip curls. “But as soon as I realized this, the lyrium began to glow. It had been dormant for some days—drained, I thought. I did not call on it. It came alive of its own accord.”

He moves to Hawke’s other arm. “Salona did not give up. He shouted instructions to the other mages. The lyrium was…it was bright, it burned as nothing I have ever felt before. It…hurt. Very much.” He falters, then reaches up and cups Hawke’s cheek, gazing at him with a muted fear; but only for a moment before he is working at the armor once more. “I did not know what was going to happen to me. I was terrified.”

Finished, he sits back. Hawke sets the tassets aside and picks up the greaves, sliding one over his shin. Fenris leaves him to it, going to the racks of weapons at the opposite wall. “There was an…explosion, of sorts. I fell unconscious. When I awoke again Salona was above me, asking me if I knew what my name was. It became clear he _did not know whether or not the ritual had worked.”_

Fenris shrugs. “I was so weak I could hardly move. Something the lyrium did or Salona’s mages, I’m not sure. Obviously I could not admit that my mind was still intact. He would simply bind me again and make another attempt later. So I pretended that my memories were gone. I have been pretending for nearly two weeks. He was beginning to trust me, Hawke.” A small sigh. “And then you came for me.”

An interesting tale. Neither of them know much about the lyrium, although Hawke did manage to figure out, with the help of that blasted Tevinter Bull’s sleeping with, that the lyrium comes alive on its own to save Fenris’s life—it has removed him from the path of killing blows in the past. So this…

“Ah, here we are.” Fenris comes over with a pair of daggers. Not Hawke’s, but they’re approximately the same size. “Will these do?”

“Er—yes, that’s perfect.” He takes them. “So you were…you pretended to have lost your memories. Pretended to serve Salona. For _two weeks.”_

Fenris snorts. “I’ve been with you for seven years, Hawke. I’d like to think I’m at least half as good a liar as you by now, which should be enough to fool almost anyone.”

“Fooled me,” he mutters.

“Yes. I…am sorry I could not convey to you the truth. But I could not afford even the smallest risk.” He goes to the racks of armor by the wall, searching. “Not when both our lives were at stake.”

Hawke finishes with the first greave and starts on the second. “I…can’t imagine it was very pleasant. Serving a magister again.”

Fenris shrugs, taking a breastplate from its rack. “I knew it was temporary. And anyway, it was satisfying to see how I had him fooled. He was cautious, of course, and never left me alone. But I think my reaction to seeing you in the dungeons the night before last emboldened him. Tonight after supper he told me to go wait for him in his chambers instead of accompanying me there himself. I decided to make my way down here instead.”

Hawke freezes. “His—chambers?”

Fenris rolls his eyes, fitting the breastplate to his chest. “He didn’t touch me, Hawke. _That_ I would not have tolerated.”

He buckles the breastplate with practiced ease and picks up a pair of vambraces. Hawke watches him, greaves for the moment forgotten. Salona’s words still smart— _it’s easy to tell he used to be a slave. He’s settling into the old patterns rather smoothly._ To have worked sixteen years to escape that—and then been forced back into it all at once, to serve a man who manipulated and condescended to him, who pretended affection for the purposes of control—which he _doesn’t deserve,_ after all this, he deserves peace and nothing less, but of course Hawke had to take that job on Seheron and put him in danger anyway…

Fenris lifts an eyebrow, having noticed Hawke’s stare. “What is it?”

Hawke shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. “Nothing, it’s just—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone to Seheron. Stupid to think nothing would come of it. And you—and you were the one who—“

 _“Hawke.”_ Fenris approaches, crouching and taking Hawke’s hand. “I am fine. I need you to understand that, and I need you to focus. Can you do that?”

Hawke holds Fenris’s hand in both of his own. Thin and smooth, the lyrium lines burning against his skin. “I—I don’t know when it was, exactly, but—Salona came down here, we spoke, and I said something foolish and he told me that he was going to…he was going to punish you for it.”

Fenris’s green eyes widen; then he squeezes Hawke’s fingers. “Salona never hurt me. Not once.”

“Not even after—“

 _“No,_ not even then. You did not bring any harm to me.” He leans forward and kisses Hawke softly.

Hawke takes in a deep breath and lets it out. “All right. Good.” He wraps the tassets around his waist. “So Salona’s still alive.”

“Yes.” Fenris stands.

“Hm.” He tightens the tassets, cinching them so they won’t slip. “We shouldn’t leave him alive.”

Fenris is finishing with his vambraces. At Hawke’s remark he looks up.

“I mean—he already came after us once,” Hawke continues. “What’s to say he won’t do it again, and twice as angry this time?”

Fenris sighs. “Hawke, you can just say you want to kill him. You don’t need to pretend to have a reason for it.”

“I know, but if I tell Bull I almost scuppered his plan on a personal vendetta, he’ll ride off without me. You said I’ve been here two nights?”

Fenris rises, choosing a buckler from a crate along the wall. “Yes.”

“Hm. I told Bull to withdraw if I hadn’t escaped by now, but I’ve got a feeling he and the Chargers are still in the city.” Hawke stands and slots the sheathed daggers at his waist. “They’re our exit strategy.”

“Hawke? Much as I would enjoy killing Salona—and believe me, I would—we should focus on escaping.” Fenris sighs. “There are only two of us, and you are injured. It would be suicide to face him like this.”

Hawke opens his mouth to argue—but stops, swallowing his protests. He’s the one who bollocksed up Fenris’s escape, after all. And Fenris knows much better than he does the threat they face in Salona. “All right. I’ll follow you.”

“It is possible he has already discovered my absence and raised the alarm.” Fenris takes up his blade. “Be prepared for fighting.”

Hawke rises with effort, and he’s just taken his first step toward the door when the distant sound of bells clangs down through the stone halls.

“That would be the alarm,” Fenris mutters.

“Believe it or not, those bells are actually going to be helpful. Shall we?”

Fenris lifts an eyebrow but does not ask for an explanation. “Stay close to me. You are injured.”

“Got it.”

 _“Hawke._ If you try anything heroic, we will have words.”

“I know, I know. I promise I’ll be good.”

Fenris grunts, clearly not convinced, and slips out the door. Hawke follows on his heels.

They make haste. That’s the most important thing. Guards are easier to kill when they haven’t had a chance to organize yet. Easier for Fenris, anyway, who does the great bulk of the work, his blade darting through the air, his buckler smashing hands and noses and ribs. Hawke remains at the fringes, putting in a killing blow or two when Fenris is too distracted to finish the job. He was sort of hoping the burning in his broken skin and the deep wells of ache in his bruised flesh would feel better once he got moving again. They don’t.

Doesn’t matter much. Fenris is an avatar of death, blood collecting in the seams and ridges of his stolen armor, splattered shining over the plates. His strides are steady but eager, the bursts of violence volatile but fluid. It’s plain he’s been awaiting this moment for nearly two weeks.

Hawke can’t believe he ever thought he was going to run in here by himself and save Fenris. It would have required possibly more creativity than he has in him, first of all—and of course, Fenris never even needed the help. (He might have, of course, because blood magic is unpredictable and Salona has proven himself a clever opponent; but to see Fenris like this, cutting down men with terrible efficiency, lyrium ablaze….)

“Here.” Fenris jerks his head at a wooden door in the wall, yanking his sword out of the body at his feet.

“Good.” Hawke goes to it and listens a moment, then pulls it open to reveal steps beyond. Fenris did not say anything when Hawke told him to find a way up onto the walls rather than to the gate—no time for questioning. And indeed he slips into the lead without hesitation.

As they climb Hawke snags the back of Fenris’s shirt and points up. Footsteps higher in the tower. Fenris goes to meet them. Hawke stays back—he’d only get in the way on this narrow staircase. A moment later there’s a surprised cry from above, and a man plummets past the railing, landing with a crash on the floor below. A strangled scream, and another body falls; then Fenris calling, “Come.”

Hawke climbs.

This was the easy bit: disorganized fighters who didn’t know what they were facing with a maze of hallways between them and their reinforcements. The rest of their flight will not go so smoothly. Fenris is waiting on the landing, glowing faintly. “Would you care to explain now why we’re not going toward the gate?” he asks. “Have you hidden a rope on the walls?”

“No. Got something even better.” Hawke offers a shaky grin. Hurts. He hurts. The bruises on his thighs, throbbing from ascending the stairs.

Fenris’s battle calm breaks open for a moment with worry; then he nods jerkily. “I will trust you.”

Another few flights and the trapdoor is above them. Fenris pauses beneath it, taking a long, slow breath.

When he shoves the door open a blast of force bursts from his markings, enough to send Hawke stumbling down a couple of steps. He shakes his head—should know by now not to stand that close. Fenris surges through the opening, and there’s more shouting from above. But it doesn’t last long, and when it’s quiet Hawke comes through into the small watchhouse to find a handful of corpses lying on the ground, Fenris wiping the gore from his weapon on one of their tunics. He stands and sheathes the blade. “So. Your plan? More will be upon us—“

An arrow clatters off the outer wall of the structure and falls to the stone. Right. That burst from the lyrium must have been quite brilliant in the gloom of the late evening. “Let me just—“ Hawke kneels, unbuckling a quiver from one of the fallen soldiers and taking a bow to go with it. “Here, follow me.”

He goes out the door opposite where the arrow struck and scans. Yes, the fourth watchtower; Fenris led them true. And the bells have been ringing for at least five minutes, so everyone _should_ be in position. He goes to the parapet and peers over. In the alley below a torch flickers orange, the light gleaming off something that might be a bronze horn-cap.

Another clatter as an arrow bounces off the parapet beside him. Cutting it close. Hawke cups his hands to his mouth and bellows “HAHRET!”

The torch shifts, and from the alley a white streak of light shoots up into the evening sky, letting out a piercing wail. Hawke winces and covers his ears. The light rises higher and higher, the wail starting to slump in pitch and taper off. Something grabs the back of his armor and yanks—Fenris, pulling him down to a crouch. A pair of arrows sail past them. But Hawke keeps his head above the parapets, watching the darkened town spread out beneath him, waiting…

An explosion booms out into the night, followed by a great cloud of flame in the district to his left. A second explosion echoes it to his right, and a third further off toward the wall. Then the shouting—from below, and the keep behind him. Good. Good. Hahret calls up from the alley: “I’m ready for you!”

Hawke glances over. Fenris is staring wide-eyed at the three foci of flame, still burning bright. “No civilian casualties,” Hawke tells him. “Or they wouldn’t have set off the explosives.”

“I—er. Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

Fenris blinks. “For what?”

“To jump.” He indicates the alley below. “Don’t worry, Hahret’s going to catch us.”

_“What?”_

Another shout. _“Now, Hawke!”_

Hawke takes Fenris’s hand and stands. “She’s done this before, I swear.”

“Hawke, it’s a _sixty-foot fall!”_

“Listen, it’s this or the gates—“ He leaps sideways, stumbling into Fenris, as another arrow strikes the parapet beside him. “—and there’s a _lot_ more guards at the gates. Shall we?”

Fenris’s grip tightens until Hawke’s sure his bones will break. “I’m trusting you, Hawke.”

Not a stance he encourages, but they’re pressed for time. “Right.” He climbs onto the parapet, Fenris doing the same beside him. “Three, two, one—“

He jumps.

For a second they simply plummet through the air in freefall—then Hawke feels his stomach leaping into his throat as he decelerates all at once, hanging in the air. Then he’s plummeting again, and there’s a second deceleration and finally he drops the last few feet, landing with a _thud_ on his back. Beside him Fenris makes an ugly noise and coughs, rolling over with a hand on his middle. Hawke takes a deep breath and concentrates very hard on not throwing up.

All his effort is almost for naught when Hahret grasps him by the armpits and hauls him bodily to his feet. (A peculiar sensation—Hawke doesn’t know many people strong enough to manage that.) “No time for resting. We need to go.”

“Hm.” Hawke nods and coughs into his elbow. “Go. Right.”

Fenris is climbing to his feet. “That was unpleasant.”

Hahret arches an eyebrow. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Barely.” He unties the ribbon from his hair, combing the braid out with his fingers, tilting his head away from the buckler still strapped to his forearm.

Hahret squints at him. “Are you from Seheron? You look like a native.”

“It would not surprise me.” Fenris ties his hair back up in a messy bun.

“Are you all right? Did the Vints hurt you?”

“No. Only Hawke.”

Hahret turns. “Can you still run?”

Hawke nods. “Should be all right.” Probably.

“Good. I’ll put in a few extra punches for you.” She strides forward.

Hawke goes first, because Fenris is reflective and Hahret is enormous and also reflective, between the white hair and the horn caps. He sticks to the narrower alleys where torches do not burn to give them away. Guards dash down cross-streets with armor half-on, and Hawke motions the others back toward the wall and waits for them to pass. It might make a difference to pick a few of them off here, but it’s better to keep everyone’s attention on the explosions rather than leave a trail of bodies that’ll risk exposing the ruse. Hahret murmurs directions, and Hawke creeps ahead, watches and listens. This degree of caution probably isn’t necessary with the dull roar of flames in the distance, the smoke wafting overhead, the scent of char suffusing the air. But they’ll have enough trouble at the city gate without making their own now through simple carelessness.

The city gate.

“You should stay out of the fighting,” Hahret tells him as they slip down another alley. “You’re injured. They can overwhelm you.”

She’s right, of course. The thrill of the escape is helping, but those lashings and beatings have still got their claws in him. He grasps his bow. “Just put me on high ground.”

“They’ve got archers too. If you’re on the rooftops they’ll tear you apart.”

“Doesn’t have to be the roof. Top floor will do.”

Shouting, growing closer, and the clang of metal. The roar of flame. “Mages,” Fenris breathes. Right. Mages in the guard. Shit. That wouldn’t be a problem in the bloody south.

Hahret guides them left. There, between two buildings at the end of the street. The wide, torchlit boulevard. Hawke squints at one of the buildings and points. “Corner window.”

“Hm.” Hahret follows him forward. “You want me to get you all the way up there?”

He heaves a sigh. “Please don’t make me scale it. I’m injured.”

“I can probably do it,” Hahret says as they reach the edge of the boulevard, and raises her arms.

Hawke finds himself borne into the air.

It’s a bit unsettling. Sort of like floating in water, but worse—he flails like a fish and finds no purchase, forced to leave his fate in Hahret’s very large hands. Second story window, third story…fourth. He reaches out, grasps the edge of the roof above it, and kicks as hard as he can.

The shutters crash inward, breaking from their hinges, glass spraying onto the floor. Hawke ducks his head and swings inside. Hahret’s magic leaves him in the middle of the maneuver, and he lands with an ungainly thump on the floor, scrambling to his feet.

A dark kitchen, his silhouette splashed on the floor in the square of moonlight that slants through the window. He falters, holding his ribs— _ow—_ then checks his bow. Unbroken, and the quiver still stuffed full. Good. He listens a moment—no frightened whispers or creaking of floors. The inhabitants must have fled when the fighting erupted just outside. Hawke goes into the next room (a living room) and then the last, a master bedroom, closest to the gate. He hikes the window open and pushes the shutters out with care.

A rush of hot air blows into the room as flames streak through the melee below. A cluster of soldiers in Tevinter armor being held back by two fighters—there’s Sky Watcher with his enormous mace, and a few feet away Bull wielding his axe with somewhat more circumspection than he normally demonstrates. Behind them Dorian and Sigrid hurl missiles of fire or spirit energy at the archers on the walls. The gate is still down. The gatehouse will be heavily guarded, so Harding’s group might need some time, but those fires they set off around the city a few minutes ago won’t keep the guards away forever.

The air blurs and crackles in front of Hawke, and he throws himself backward as lightning gathers above the melee and forks down. Fuck. That’s the enemy mages’ work. They need to be taken care of. Hawke unships his bow and returns to the window—

—but the ball of lightning disappears before he can even find a target. He peers up the boulevard.

There’s Hahret (hard to miss), throwing wild blows that translate into massive sweeps of force magic. Around her Tevinter mages tumble and roll across the cobblestones, struggle to their feet to attempt a counterattack. But a brilliant blue glow spits the night—Fenris, drawing their fire. Because he’s got the lyrium to shield him, unlike Bull and Sky Watcher, who haven’t got any defense against magic—

—and they’ve just been struck by lightning, so Hawke nocks an arrow and turns back to the melee.

Fire rages among the Tevinter soldiers. That’s Dorian. Hawke shifts his focus higher, at the archers who only have Sigrid now to stop them. Not the easiest shot, as the wall’s not especially close, but Hawke aims (wincing, the broken skin on his back shifting as he draws the bow), lets out a breath, and releases the string.

His target stumbles and falls. The archers to either side jump and look around, ceasing their volleys, which was rather the point, and Hawke could duck back inside the bedroom but he’s already firing again. That arrow goes wide but they’re shouting and pointing and some of the pressure is off Sigrid, for now. But it’s not going to last because it won’t be long before the scattered guards figure out those explosions were a distraction and that bloody gate needs to open up soon or—

The gate shudders and begins to rise.

At last. The fire rampaging through the enemy soldiers disappears as Dorian focuses up on the wall again. Sigrid slips beneath the heavy iron grate, off to the stables (“How are you going to wrangle twelve horses by yourself?” Hawke had asked, and she shrugged and said simply, “I’m Avvar”). The chain creaks, the open space growing. They’ll get it as high as they can so it has further to go if they’re overwhelmed—and anyway, Sigrid needs time to gather the mounts. But they can begin to withdraw, at least. There’s a rush of relief in Hawke’s chest—not long now before they’ll be back in the Marches, away from blood magic or dungeons or vengeful magisters. Hawke fires another shot, finding his target, and leans back as an arrow spears into the shutter by his head. Not long before he and Fenris can finally return to their little house by the river, back to quiet and safety. He steps forward again and nocks another arrow.

Something soft and warm wraps his arm up from wrist to shoulder.

The yank nearly pulls his shoulder out of its socket. It _does_ pull him from the window, sending him plummeting through the air. His yell of surprise might be the only thing that saves him; as the cobbles rush up to meet him, there’s a sickly lurch in his stomach as his momentum rapidly falls off, letting him down with a _thud_ that’ll leave a bruise but no broken bones. Hahret’s work. But there’s still this thing around his arm—

A thick sheet of blood.

Blood magic. Hawke struggles to stand but it doesn’t matter. Another red skein wraps up his throat and pulls him back to the cobbles and up the street. A brassy shout of pain. That’s Hahret, Hawke just catching the gleam of her white hair off to one side. He cranes his head back, trying to see and knowing what he’ll find—

Salona.

He strides out from one of the shadowed alleys out onto the boulevard, Hawke dragged behind him like a dog on a leash. He does not appear perturbed—insulted, maybe, but his steps are steady, his posture blade-straight. _Fucked,_ Hawke thinks distantly. _He’ll kill us all._ As he’s hauled over the cobblestones he glimpses a pile of corpses in the alley. Salona’s own men? Did he kill them just for their blood? A red whirl like a waterspout erupts from the bodies and zigzags out of the alley. Hahret has only just managed to stand before it collides with her and she vanishes inside the turbulent wall.

_“Hawke!”_

No, no, no—

Hawke turns as best he can with his arm still captured. Fenris charges across the boulevard, lyrium blazing. Fuck. Salona looks up as if affronted by the interruption; then he raises his hand. “Down,” he says evenly.

A tidal wave in red rushes from the pile of corpses, splitting around Salona and Hawke and reforming again. Torchlight glimmers off of its rippling surface. Fenris disappears behind it, but there’s no mistaking the moment of impact, the deep red illuminated from within by radiant blue-white. Shafts of light break through and are extinguished, smothered by the spell. The two wings of the wave collapse inward, wrapping Fenris up. Salona’s face tightens almost imperceptibly. Hawke inches toward his belt with his free hand. His daggers are still there, and with Salona distracted—

Another warm gush of blood cascades over him, and he finds both arms being dragged across his chest and pinned there, his throat squeezed by the flowing collar until he gasps for breath. That’s it, then. For all his cleverness, he isn’t a mage. Against blood magic he’s helpless as one of the rabbits he traps in the woods outside Kirkwall, lying on the dry ground with the snare closed around his neck.

A harsh battle cry, and Fenris burst through the roiling wall of red. But it pursues him, dragging at his legs. Still he staggers closer, his steps hard-won and wavering. “Let him go!” he shouts. _“Let him go!”_

Salona’s eyes narrow. “I said, _down.”_

Static fills the air, prickling on Hawke’s skin. A split-second later and electricity erupts from the tide of blood, shooting up Fenris’s legs and wracking his body. He yells again, this time in pain, and crashes to his knees. The lyrium’s white-blue aura seethes from his skin to devour the lashing bolts, but it’s overwhelmed, and his markings flicker oddly. “Stop,” Hawke gasps through the grip on his throat. “Please.”

The lightning slackens but does not cease. Fenris crawls forward, his weapon lost from his hand. “Hawke—“

Hawke is about to respond when blood flows liquid and thick around his chest and stomach and cinches tight, driving the breath out of him. _Hurts,_ he thinks distantly, as it compresses his bruised ribs. His back arches with the pain.

“No!” Fenris shouts, and struggles to stand. “Leave him alone!”

Another burst of electricity drives him to his knees. Salona gazes at him a moment as if watching for any further signs of resistance, but the crackling purple-white bolts make for persuasive shackles. With a small sigh he looks down at Hawke. “Did you think you’d make a fool of me again?”

Hawke wheezes out a convulsive laugh. “Too bloody—late, you bastard—“

The bands of blood constrict around him. Something pops in his chest, then something else. A deep, urgent ache unfolds in his gut. He’s sure his organs are being damaged. His mouth opens but his ribs are too compressed to allow him to inhale.

“Please—“ A noise of pain. Fenris’s hands, flattened on the ground, wreathed in electricity, stutter toward Hawke. “Don’t kill him—please—“

Salona lifts an eyebrow. “If I swore to let him live, would you serve me? I do not think so. I think you would only bide your time until you found a way to free him. Would it not be better if I killed him here and now? It would make a life of freedom much less attractive.”

The lyrium blazes, and Salona flinches in response. Fenris trembles, his face set in pain; but he pushes himself up to one knee. _“I will never serve you!”_

A knife strikes Salona in the shoulder.

It isn’t Hawke’s. His aim isn’t nearly so poor. The knife doesn’t cut deep enough to stick—might not even cut at all, since it simply bounces off of Salona and clatters to the cobblestones. But he looks up, startled, and Hawke’s eyes slide down the boulevard as well.

Bull, charging forward, having broken from the field (what’s left of it, the melee much diminished behind him). Salona’s hands are already moving, but something slams into his back and makes him stumble. Something invisible— _Hahret,_ must be, and he whirls to contain her again—

But it’s too late. The ploy has already worked, Salona’s attention pulled now in too many different directions when all of it should have been on the greatest threat, the one kneeling right in front of him, green eyes alight with anger.

Fenris surges to his feet. His markings blaze, overpowering the electricity, stripping away the blood that drags at his legs. The lyrium overtakes his arm—so _fast,_ effortless now as it never was in Kirkwall, and he jams his spectral hand through Salona’s chest.

Salona’s mouth opens as if he’s about to say something, but then Fenris’s arm becomes solid again and only an ugly noise of agony gurgles out of Salona’s throat. Blood darkens his robes. He clutches at Fenris’s wrist, gasping. “You—impossible—“

“It was your arrogance that led you here,” Fenris tells him. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

He yanks his arm back, leaving a gaping hole in Salona’s chest. Salona collapses, his body crumpling to the cobblestones.

Immediately the bands of blood release Hawke, and he heaves in breaths, rolling over on his side to cough. Fenris kneels next to him, helping him sit up. “Are you all right?” he asks urgently.

“Y—yes.” Voice hoarse. Throat in terrible pain. “Y-you?”

“Fine. His magic was…unpleasant, but did not leave wounds.”

Hawke squeezes Fenris’s hand. “I’m glad the—“ Another cough. “—the bastard’s dead.”

“So am I.”

“Look, I hate to interrupt.“ Bull approaching with Hahret beside him; he looks injured, although Hahret, despite being caught inside a waterspout of blood magic, seems largely all right. “But we gotta move.” Bull jerks his head up the boulevard. “There’s more coming.”

Hawke peers past him. Perhaps a hundred yards out a dark mass of soldiers approaches, armor glittering in the torchlight. Shit. Must be reinforcements from the keep. With Fenris’s help he climbs to his feet. “Right.”

“Gates should be almost clear. Hahret, lead the way.” Bull hefts his axe. “I’ll cover your backs.”

They advance down the street toward the blossoms of flame—Dorian and Sky Watcher clearing out the last of the soldiers. Hawke goes with bow in hand, breathing shallowly, a pang of agony shooting through his ribs each time he inhales. Almost there. Can it really be over? This nightmare?

A dozen soldiers burst out from the alleys ahead and charge at Dorian. Shit. The fires out in the city have lost their interest at last. More will be on their way. Sky Watcher steps in to intercede, and Hahret is already casting. A great rush of force sweeps down the boulevard and sends the soldiers staggering.

“Ignore them!” Bull shouts as he starts to run. “You three get to the horses!”

With Hahret’s help he corrals the soldiers to one side, opening up a path on the edge of the street. Hawke slips through, Fenris beside him—killing a pair of stragglers who come up on their flank. Then Hahret rejoins them as they pass under the gate. She gestures upward, and the air ripples oddly above him—a shield, he realizes, as an arrow bounces off of it.

Out of the city.

The wide-open plains, the dusty road, the stables off to the left. Flames crackle on the roof, and Hawke spots some horses already fleeing into the dark. Sigrid stands with their small herd a few dozen yards down the road, conjuring up great gusts to deter the arrows that fly down at her. Not over yet. Harding, Ritts, and Loranil are there already. Hawke finds his horse and tries to mount—pain lancing through his stomach as he starts to haul himself up, and he groans, planting his boot on the ground again. But Fenris is right there, pushing him up, and Hawke manages to swing his leg over and seat himself in the saddle. When he looks around he finds Dorian and Sky Watcher approaching. Which just leaves…

“Bull’s on his way!” Dorian shouts. “Go, we’re right behind you!”

Hawke hesitates even as the others start down the road; but then Fenris leans over and smacks his horse on the ass and he’s riding away with the rest of them. Sky Watcher is close behind, and only Dorian remains, his dun and Bull’s draft horse waiting as he summons a glittering blue barrier out of the air to foil the archers.

Harding leads them, taking them straight down the road for a few seconds until they’re beyond the archers’ range and they can turn south toward the Silent Plains. The galloping is unpleasant, jarring Hawke’s battered body, but Fenris is just to his left and the relief of it washes some of the pain away. He leans forward in the saddle, bending his knees to better absorb the shock. It isn’t so bad once they hit the sand, either. Is it over? Have they really escaped?

The company has only been riding for a couple of minutes when Harding slows them to a stop, peering back across the white sand into the moonlit night. “Okay, doesn’t look like they’re pursuing yet,” she says. “Anyone need urgent healing?”

“Hawke does,” Fenris puts in.

Sigrid trots over, resting one hand on Hawke’s arm. Her fingers are wreathed in what looks like smoke, glowing eddies swirling out over his chest and stomach. Immediately the pain begins to ease. Thank the Maker. He tips his head back and shuts his eyes briefly.

Hahret comes up on his other side. “You all right?”

“Think so.” He shrugs. “Just a couple of ribs.”

“More than that,” Sigrid mutters.

“Er. Well.” Hawke nods at Hahret, then scans the gathered company. “How about you? When Salona got you, I thought you were dead for sure.”

She lets out a low chuckle. “I’m from Seheron. Do you know how many blood mages have tried to kill me?” She sits back in her saddle. “I’ve adapted.”

But Hawke isn’t listening anymore. He scans the company again, with the same result. Dread pools liquid and cold in his stomach. Half-turning in his seat, he looks back over the rippled dunes behind them. Nothing.

“Hawke?” Fenris asks. “What is it?”

He waits a moment, then a moment more. The dunes are empty, gleaming pristine in the moonlight. Not even a breath of wind stirs the sand. This can’t be. It’s supposed to be over. The plan worked. They escaped.

“Hawke, what’s wrong?” Fenris says.

Hawke stares at him, throat tight. Hardly manages to get the words out. “Where’s Bull?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up tacking this on to the After Kirkwall series because it depends a lot on that arc.
> 
> [yarking](http://yarking.tumblr.com/)'s contributions to my writing of this fic are significant enough to require a shoutout at the very least.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through vast gulfs of time between chapter updates!

Silence.

“Where—“ Hawke tugs the reins, his horse turning, Sigrid’s hand slipping from his arm. “We have to go back. What if he needs help?”

Harding trots over, getting in front of him. “Hawke, you can’t go back. It’s too dangerous.”

“How do you know?” he demands.

“Let me take a look,” Sigrid interrupts, and raises her arm. A spectral bird of prey appears, sitting on her vambrace—an eagle, taking off into the night sky and soaring back north. Her eyes go milky-white.

“Oh, Korth’s balls. Fires in the stables are out,” she murmurs. “Riders down the road. Dorian and Bull out front, Tevinters pursuing. Two dozen—three, maybe. Dorian’s trying, but they’ll catch up. Bull’s horse is slow.”

Of course it is, the damned thing was bred to pull wagons, not execute harrowing escapes. “Then we should hurry!” Hawke says.

No one replies. The Chargers sit in their saddles, silent.

Hawke can hardly believe what he’s seeing. “You heard Sigrid, they’ll be overtaken! We need to move. _Now.”_

Harding is the first to speak up. “We can’t.”

For a moment he’s sure he misheard. “What do you—what do you mean you _can’t?”_

“He made us promise. Bull did. That if the enemy ever had him and we were home free, we would leave him behind. Keep ourselves out of danger. He made us _promise.”_

The Chargers stare at their saddles, or at the sand below. Hawke’s throat burns, his eyes pricking. This can’t be happening. “Please. I can’t— _I_ can’t save him. I need help. _Please.”_

No one moves. Except Fenris, who turns his horse north, but Fenris fights with a blade and will be hard pressed to match three dozen cavalrymen. But he’s going to go anyway, even though they’ll fail, even though he could stay here and be safe, because Hawke has to go back and with that there’s no use trying to persuade Fenris to stay behind.

Hawke takes a deep, shuddering breath _(ribs,_ Maker, they still hurt) and grasps absently at the bow slung over his back. There’s nothing else to say. He spurs his horse and starts riding north. Fenris comes up on his left at a steady gallop. They’re going to fail. But he has to try. He _has_ to. His own poor judgement is the only reason Bull came up here in the first place. So if he can do anything— _anything—_ to give Bull even a sliver of a chance, then he must do it. No matter the cost to himself—

A nicker from his right.

Hawke turns. Hahret is there, keeping pace. She say nothing, merely nods at him. The thudding of hooves on sand behind him, and he twists in the saddle—Sigrid, Ritts, Loranil. Further back Sky Watcher trails with the packhorses. And then there’s Harding, drawing up on Fenris’s other side. “When Bull gets mad at us,” she calls to Hawke, “I’m blaming you!”

“We need to head northwest!” Sigrid shouts. “They’re headed straight down the road, we’ll be coming up behind them!”

Seven against three dozen. Dorian or Bull might be able to help. Depends on if the Tevinters have mages, and how many archers they’ve got. But the Chargers will be coming up on their tail. It might work. It might.

Over the dunes, and then there’s dry grass poking out of the sand, the ground growing firmer as the keep appears off to their right, the road ahead. The group of horses thundering forward with two riders out front, about to be surrounded. Bright bolts of electricity light up the night but fizzle out before they can gather power. That’s Dorian’s work, countering their magic, but he’s completely on the defensive—no gouts of flame stampeding through the enemy riders. And they’re being overtaken.

Hawke digs his heels into his horse’s side and unships his bow. Shooting from horseback. Now _that’s_ been a while. But he remembers the feel of it, and anyway, there are plenty of targets. So he draws his bow and exhales.

His first shot is both wide and low, but it hits the rump of the horse adjacent to his target, and the animal crashes to the ground. Three more arrows fly past him—Harding, Ritts and Loranil, finding their marks. Hahret gallops past to get in range, Fenris on her heels. Shouts from the enemy company. A spectral eagle dives from the sky and knocks a man from his mount; he’s trampled immediately.

The air crackles in front of Hawke, and he tries to pull up but knows it’s too late—until a glittering white wind rushes over his back and scours away the electric haze. “I’ve got you!” Sigrid calls from behind him.

Right. He isn’t doing this alone. Hawke spurs his horse and rides forward without fear.

Up ahead Hahret is busy causing chaos, horses stumbling, soldiers crashing into their comrades. Fenris rides up past her until he meets the rear of the company. Sparks gather above them, and Hahret shouts something; she and Fenris peel off hard together just before lightning forks down from the sky and strikes the ground where they just were. The space around them fills with sparks, pursuing the both of them—

Fire explodes among the horsemen.

Dorian’s work, although for a moment Hawke isn’t quite certain. Since when has the Tevinter had _that much power?_ The blast expands and keeps expanding, the screams of horses and men filling the night. But Hawke’s breath catches in his throat—the flames aren’t stopping, what in Andraste’s name is he—

Hahret gestures, and the inferno splits around her and Fenris, spilling to either side in a wild tumult thirty feet high before it finally burns out. Harding fires again to Hawke’s left; he shakes himself and follows suit. With that blaze, if they press right now, it might be enough to send the soldiers back to the city. He fires one shot after another, hardly bothering to aim. Doesn’t need to kill them, just push their fear over the edge.

One of the riders breaks off north. Then another, and another.

Hawke passes by fallen men and burned horses, blackened flesh still smoking, stinking of char. His quiver is nearly empty. They break away in twos and threes now, heading north and then tacking back east toward the city.

Thank the Maker.

With the pursuers thinning out, Hawke spots Dorian and Bull, slowing now. Fenris and Hahret have stopped, so Hawke comes up by them first. “Are you two all right? Did the fire catch you?”

Hahret checks her forearms. The hair there is singed. “Fine. Gonna have a talk with the Vint, though.”

Hawke follows her, Fenris beside him as they approach Dorian and Bull—Dorian’s face tight with strain, Bull hunched, black Qunari blood shining on his skin in the places the armor doesn’t cover. He holds the reins in one hand, the other curled to his chest. “Keep,” he breathes. “Riding.”

Hawke waves an arm at the others. They go south across the plains and over the white dunes; Sigrid’s hands weave, a gentle swirl of wind following them, piling sand over their tracks. Behind them the desert is pristine, glittering in the moonlight like new-fallen snow.

Dorian is the first to break the silence, perhaps a mile gone between them and the south edge of the plains. “Please. Bull needs—he’s hurt.”

Bull grunts but makes no objection. The horses slow, and Hawke’s the first to dismount _(ribs,_ bloody ribs), going over to help Bull off his horse. Big as Hawke is, it’s still no easy job; Bull is enormous, and his skin is slick where it’s covered in blood. Sigrid is there a moment later, taking Bull, guiding him to the foot of the dune where the glow of her healing magic won’t be seen from afar.

“So.”

That’s Hahret. Hawke turns.

Dorian’s dismounted as well, unsteady on his feet, grasping the saddlebags for support. “Er—yes. My apologies.”

Hahret’s arms are folded. “You almost incinerated me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.” He places a hand gingerly on his stomach. “It’s just—I drank rather a lot of lyrium, and I couldn’t quite control—“

“How much?” Hahret interrupts.

“What, lyrium?” Dorian shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. Five vials? I was desp—“

The sentence truncated when Hahret grabs his collar and jams two fingers down his throat. He retches immediately, blue-tinted vomitus spilling onto the sand. Hahret makes a face and wipes her hand on his robes. “Dangerous. You could’ve killed yourself. And me.”

Dorian coughs, doubled over. “I was _desperate!_ I—urgh—“ Another retch, with further result.

Bull murmurs something, sitting cross-legged at the base of the dune.

Hahret turns. “What?”

“I said, it shouldn’t have mattered!” He surges to his feet, his single eye alight with anger. “You shouldn’t have been there in the first place! You all swore to me—“ he sweeps out an arm, blood flying from his fingertips like little black gnats in the night, “—you swore to me that you’d leave me behind! And _every one of you_ just broke that promise!”

Hawke steps up to intercede. “It was my fault. I begged them to come with me, I’m sorry.”

“No.” Hahret’s voice rings out clear as a bell in the cool air. Her face is hard. “He asked, but we chose to go. Blame us if you need to blame someone.”

“I am,” Bull snarls at her.

“Bull.” Dorian coughs once more into his elbow, then straightens. “They did it because you’re important to them. You’re a good man. People are going to care about you. You have to accept that.”

Bull only stares for a moment, his rage bridled awkwardly just as he had found his footing; then, with care, he lowers himself to the sand again. “Don’t get comfortable,” he mutters. “We’re riding again as soon as Sigrid’s done.”

The tension seeps away, and Hawke lets out a breath of relief. Beside him Fenris makes a noise of disgust.

Hawke glances over. “What’s wrong?”

“The Tevinter said something I agreed with,” Fenris replies. “I don’t like it when that happens.”

Hawke chuckles. “As far as Tevinters go, he isn’t the _absolute_ worst.”

“And you could stand to listen to him.” Fenris looks up. “People care about you, Hawke. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hawke pauses, unsure what to say to that. So instead he just goes to the saddlebag and starts rummaging for food. “Well, I’ll try to avoid it then, if I can.”

Then there’s a tugging at his hip, and when he turns around Fenris embraces him.

Somewhat forcefully, and he stumbles back a step before steadying himself; Fenris is clutching the back of his armor, face buried in his shoulder. It’s painful, of course, with the pressure on his ribs, but Hawke doesn’t much care about that right now and wraps his arms around Fenris’s back, holding him tight. The night is quiet. There’s murmured conversation around them from the Chargers, and the desert wind lets out a low, lonely whistle as it sweeps past them. No shouting, no explosions. No clashing of blades. Fenris’s body is thin and warm in his arms. “We’re going to be all right,” Hawke finds himself saying, stupidly, because it’s sort of obvious with the battle over and the head cut off the snake.

Fenris stands on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth—once, twice, three times.

They hold each other for another moment before Dorian (cleaned up now) asks if Hawke still needs healing, declaring that he’s got to do _something_ with all the magic ricocheting around inside him or he’s going to burst. So Hawke accepts the offer. At first it feels a bit like he’s being shocked repeatedly on the inside, but that levels off soon enough and Dorian mutters an apology and Hawke discovers he isn’t in so much pain anymore.

Minutes later they’re riding again, and this time they don’t stop until the eastern sky begins to blush pink with the dawn. Sigrid shapes stone tent poles from the sand and they drape linens to give themselves shade from the punishing sun. Fenris tugs at Hawke’s hand to draw him into their own little shelter, but Hawke kisses his hair and promises to return in just a moment.

Bull’s tent is the biggest, and he asks permission to enter, hears a grunt in return, slips inside. Bull is alone there, sitting hunched on a blanket and still cradling one arm.

Hawke sits down facing him. “How are you feeling?”

A one-shouldered shrug. “Fine. Sigrid says Qunari are hard to heal, but…I’ll be fine.”

He still looks…something, unsettled, hurt, chagrined. Hawke doesn’t press, fully aware that he himself wouldn’t appreciate someone poking and prodding at him if he were in a mood like that. Instead he just rests his chin in his hand, thinking. “I’m sorry.”

“No need,” Bull replies. He heard the story on the way down and took it then with stoic silence. “You didn’t know what they were gonna do to him. It was the right decision to come up here.”

Hawke smiles at the faded blanket. “Even though Fenris was ready to escape on his own and I was the one who buggered it all up?”

“Hey. We killed a magister,” Bull says. “That’s pretty good work.”

Hawke still stares at the blanket, tries to lift his eyes and doesn’t quite make it. “I’m sorry.”

“You gotta stop doing that.”

“Hm?”

“Apologizing. You didn’t tie me up and drag me up here. I chose to…” He trails off, then lets out a deep sigh. “I chose to come. Not everything is your fault, Hawke, no matter how much you want it to be.”

Hawke snorts. “I don’t _want_ it to be.”

“Course you do. Then you can explain it, right? Then you feel like it’s under your control. But it’s not. Crap just…happens. And people you care about get hurt. You don’t control that. And yeah, it’s hard to admit to yourself that the people you love can be taken from you at any time for no good reason. But damn.” He shakes his head. “It’s a lot harder to take the blame for it every single time. Listen, a dragon could swoop down and eat us all up tomorrow. But if you spend all your time watching the sky, you forget to sleep, you forget to eat, your lover spends the whole night cold and lonely. And let’s be honest, if the dragon does come, it’s not like you could stop the damn thing. So what’s that do for anyone?” He waves a hand. “Do yourself a favor and let it go. All of it. I’ll bet Fenris misses you. And anyone else you got back in Kirkwall does too.”

As Bull speaks, Hawke finds his fists balling up, his fingernails digging into his palms, because he doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want Bull to say these things to him. But it would be rude to interrupt or leave so Hawke sits through it and even brings himself to listen. When it’s done he tries to come up with an answer. _I don’t want to do that? At least if I see the dragon coming maybe I can slow it down before it eats all my friends?_

But he knows how Bull would respond. _They don’t want you to get eaten, even to give them a chance._

So he doesn’t say any of that, instead just sort of shrugs and says, “Well, if you ever need _your_ life saved from a dastardly blood mage, you need only call on me.”

Bull grins suddenly. “What if it’s Dorian’s life?”

Hawke puts on a pained expression. “Only if you _really_ need me.”

Bull chuckles, then nods at him. “You should get back to Fenris. He’s probably waiting for you.”

That sounds like an excellent suggestion, so Hawke takes his leave. Fenris is indeed waiting for him—unclothed, and Hawke disrobes as well, but they’re both exhausted and don’t get far beyond curling up in each other’s arms. And even then they separate before long; the tent blocks the sun but not the heat, and holding each other becomes a bit too sticky for comfort.

In the evening they set out again. Hawke aches still, but the pain isn’t so bad anymore, and riding is bearable, especially on the soft sand. Fenris rides beside him. _We’re going to be all right,_ Hawke thinks again.

_We already are._

——

It’s eight days back, with not a single pursuer appearing to harry them. To be expected. With Salona dead, there will be more important things to worry about than seeking revenge. (Especially because the last revenge plot ended in the death of the one who orchestrated it.) Hawke hopes the entire incident will be a powerful enough deterrent to grant them some peace. Bull is solemn the first few days, but later he starts sitting by the fire with the rest of his company once more. He stays there now, laughing with them late into the night.

North of Kirkwall the Chargers split off to resume their contract for Varric, and in the city Bull and Dorian head for the docks to make their much-delayed return to Skyhold. Which leaves Hawke standing with Fenris at the bottom of the stairs, the late afternoon sun casting a long shadow over both of them. The people of Kirkwall stroll by lazily, enjoying the late spring heat—a young couple wearing a pair of contented smiles; a mother with a trio of young children trailing behind her; an old woman with a pipe dangling from her lip; a gaggle of teenagers tumbling by, laughter echoing off the stone walls.

They climb the stairs hand in hand, Fenris leaning on Hawke’s shoulder like the young couple who passed them in the street. Hawke has an odd slingshot moment in which he forgets where they’ve just come from—indeed, everything that’s happened in the last eight years, and thinks instead that he and Fenris have only just gotten together for good and Isabela and Varric are waiting in the Hanged Man for him, and Aveline is fresh off her honeymoon in Orlais, and Merrill is still making her way in the alienage and Anders remains in that shoddy clinic in Darktown healing the sick. Then he remembers that terrible moment in the dungeons when he thought Fenris’s memories were gone forever and his steps stutter and he comes to a stop on the stairs with the warm breeze brushing past him, lifting the hem of his cloak. How could it have happened? All of it, the past eight years? What if it isn’t over?

Then thin fingers squeeze his hand and dry lips kiss his cheek and the terror begins to abate again.

Varric is in a meeting when they arrive. Bran tries to turn them away at the door, but a few seconds later Varric bursts from the room with a bright grin. “Thought I heard a familiar voice!”

Hawke waits patiently while Varric negotiates with Bran. He comes away with a hard-fought hour, and Hawke and Fenris follow him into the office. Fenris is the one who picks the liquor—brandy, a taste he’s acquired with some coaxing from Donnic. He offers to pour, so Hawke sits while Varric flops down in his well-worn armchair and nods across the desk. “So? Things go smoothly?”

Hawke winces. “Er—not really.”

He summarizes the story, sipping at his brandy in between. Varric hardly touches his own glass. Odd, Hawke thinks, he’d expected a storyteller to be at least a little excited about the thrilling battle, the flight, and the return for their injured comrade. But instead Varric’s face is drawn, afraid. Hawke sort of trails off near the end, unsure how to comfort him. “I—we’re fine, Varric. You don’t need to worry.”

Varric barks out a laugh. _“Don’t need to worry,_ he says. Of course I need to worry! You and Fenris get into all this dangerous shit and almost get yourselves killed and I’m—stuck here in this damn keep!”

Hawke doesn’t know how to respond, so he’s glad when Fenris leans forward, setting down his near-empty glass on the polished mahogany desk. “It’s all right, we’re both still here. And I think we’ve pushed our luck enough.”

They talk of other things, although Varric’s good humor never quite breaks the surface. He looks older now, which Hawke has somehow failed to notice thus far. But he can understand it, having found a few grey hairs in these past few months at his temples and in his beard by the ears. Fenris doesn’t have that problem, of course, but Hawke has spotted a few fine lines in his face that weren’t there before; the sight of it makes his chest ache in ways he hasn’t had the nerve to pick apart yet. The conversation is interrupted all too soon by Bran’s pointed knock, and Varric gives them each a hug around the middle before they go.

Outside the afternoon has begun to cede to evening, the sun low in the sky over Hightown, splashing the pale stone with vivid orange and setting the bronze cormorant statues aglow. A warm breeze lazes through the streets and sends a stray strand of hair floating into Fenris’s face. He tucks it back and smiles. “To the Hendyrs’?”

Hawke blinks. “I—right.”

Saravh is the one who opens the door, and her shout of “UNCLE HAWKE!” bounces off the buildings behind them. She’s already jumping up into his arms, so he picks her up and spins her around (Fenris stepping gracefully back) and gives her a tight squeeze for good measure. When he sets her down he finds Aveline already embracing Fenris. An extraordinary gesture of affection from her, and he lets Saravh cling onto him for a moment longer before Aveline breaks away from Fenris and leans up to kiss Hawke’s cheek.

She grasps his arm. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

Hawke puts on a smile. “I always come back.”

“Yes, until you don’t. Blood magic, Hawke. And you’ve just got your knives. How could I not fear for you?” She reaches out to rub Saravh’s back. “Saravh was terrified. She didn’t know if she’d ever see either of you again.”

Saravh buries her face in Hawke’s shoulder. He runs a hand over her puffy hair and hasn’t the faintest idea what to say. “We had help,” he offers finally, shifting on his feet.

“Thank the Maker for that. I half-expected you to try and go it alone. At least some things change.”

Fenris snorts in the background. Saravh wriggles out of Hawke’s arms and goes to hug him.

Donnic is on the evening shift and won’t be home until much later, but Aveline has dinner going, a full pot of stew bubbling over the fire. Fenris is the one to tell the story this time; he sits on the couch with Saravh squished up against his arm. Aveline puts in a few choice words about Salona, and she’s more composed than Varric was but Hawke sees the deep worry there too. Strange, he thinks. Was it like that ten years ago when they walked into danger ever day without blinking? Why is it different now?

When Fenris finishes the story she looks between them, her eyes shifting back and forth as if she fears losing sight of one or the other. Fenris is the one who breaks the silence. “It’s all right, Aveline. We have returned safely.”

She lets out a long breath. “Then how about I feed you a nice home-cooked meal to celebrate?”

Dinner around a campfire lost its appeal years ago, and Hawke digs in with gusto. The conversation is much lighter now, laughter being passed around the table; Aveline tells stories from the keep while Saravh entertains them with magical mishaps from her classes at the College. Hawke doesn’t talk like he normally does. He’s too busy sinking into it all, letting it clean away the revulsion of knowing his mind was violated, altered with blood magic; the memory of the lash; the certainty he’d never come back here, never again sit down with Fenris and Aveline and Saravh for another family dinner.

He shouldn’t feel this way. This shouldn’t be something he _needs._ He’s the people’s champion. He’s supposed to love giving himself for others.

Fenris laughs low and merry; Saravh giggles uncontrollably, and Aveline’s trying not to choke on her food. Hawke missed the punchline but he grins at his near-empty bowl of stew and asks for thirds.

They talk late into the evening. Hawke finds himself asking more stories and details from Aveline and Saravh, such that it begins to border on interrogation. But he wants to hear it. Wants to hear about how their lives are stable and hopeful and _good._ Saravh is yawning, but she still gamely answers him, folded up against the arm of the couch with her bare feet tucked under his leg. At last Aveline comes over and kisses her hair and says it’s time for bed.

The two of them head upstairs and Hawke tips his head back and covers his eyes. “Fuck,” he moans.

The cushion beneath him indents as Fenris comes and sits. “What is it?”

Hawke’s breath hitches as he swallows a sob. “I hate it when this happens,” he mumbles, and the next sob bursts out of him, and the next, and his eyes well with tears.

Fenris moves onto his lap and strokes his cheek. “What’s wrong?” he asks gently.

Hawke sniffles and drops his hand, resting it on Fenris’s thigh. The shame is awful, sitting like bile at the base of his throat. “I don’t—I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Leave. Fight. I don’t want to be in danger anymore, I don’t want _you_ to be in danger.” His nose burns, and he hiccups out another sob. “I know they’re—they’re going to ask for my help again. The Inquisition.” As they did for the Seheron job, and a handful of times both before and since. “But I don’t want to go.”

“So stay,” Fenris replies.

Hawke scrubs at his eyes, another tear spilling down his cheek. “But…what if they need me?” he says quietly.

“They don’t need you. They come to you because you don’t ask them for money or favors. You do it because you’re a good man, not for payment. They’re happy to take advantage of that.” Fenris cups his face. “You’ve done enough, Hawke. We both have. We deserve peace.” One calloused thumb runs along his cheekbone. “Please, allow yourself that much.”

It doesn’t feel right. Because if he’s strong enough, and he _can_ help— “I should be helping,” he whispers.

A quiet sigh, and thin fingers running through his hair. “Hawke, look at me.”

He obeys. Fenris gazes at him, eyes green as leaves in summer, bright and alive. “Tell me what you want.”

“This. You.” The words rush out of him. “Drinking with Varric. Teaching Saravh to swear. Aveline turning Kirkwall into the pride of the Marches. I want to be here for it. I don’t want to die.”

“Then live,” Fenris growls, and kisses him.

Hawke feels it almost physically, a burden lifting from him, as if Fenris gave him permission—or he gave it to himself, or something, and he rises into the kiss with a mixture of reverence and need. The slim shell of disbelief cracks under the egg-tooth of his confession, spoken aloud for the first time: _I want to be here for it. I don’t want to die._

Fenris pulls away just a fraction, their lips still pressed together. “I want you, Hawke,” he murmurs. “I want you to stay with me, here. I want the future we promised ourselves.”

Another kiss, softer this time. Hawke wraps his arms around Fenris and pulls him in closer; their bodies fit together perfectly as they always have. But he breaks away again, breathless, wanting to ask before he forgets. “Can we go to the Wounded Coast tomorrow? I know we’re a couple of weeks late, but—“

Fenris smiles, radiant. “Yes. I would like that very much.”

Their lips meet once more, Fenris’s palm warm on Hawke’s cheek. Hawke is very much looking forward to the anniversary celebration, and he can’t wait for all the ones that will come after.


End file.
